


Anchors On a Distant Shore

by Kari_Kurofai



Series: Maps Untraveled, Atlas Bound [3]
Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Aftercare, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Biting, Breeding Kink, Creampie, Depression, Edging, Explicit Consent, Family Feels, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Knotting, Light Bondage, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medication, Mild Blood, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Possessive Sex, Riding, Rough Sex, Wedding Night, childhood illness, recovering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:47:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 64,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25536070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kari_Kurofai/pseuds/Kari_Kurofai
Summary: Duen knows why it’s like this, why it will continue to be so for a few more years, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.Time waits for no one, and Duen swallows back a wave of grief as it sinks in all over again just how much he’ll end up missing. He was lucky to have been there the first time Bee walked, blessed to be in the room when she’d babbled out, “Da!” and watched Bohn openly weep. By the time Duen’s graduated, when he finally plans to propose to Bohn, she’ll be almost five.His breath catches in his chest at the thought, but he pushes down against it.He has enough for now; a partner who loves him, a son who genuinely enjoys his company and advice, and a daughter he adores. It’s enough.
Relationships: Duen Krisada Rattananumchok/Bon Sirikarnkul, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Maps Untraveled, Atlas Bound [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794442
Comments: 36
Kudos: 109





	1. Any Port In a Storm

**Author's Note:**

> I can not fucking believe we are passing into the 100k words mark with this fic. How the fuck did you guys let me make this into a TRILOGY!? So rude. 
> 
> Anywho, please read. I love them and this verse so much ;____;

Duen wakes at precisely half past five in the morning for no discernable reason. It's a whole hour earlier than he normally gets up, so he lays there for a long moment, straining his hearing to try and figure out what woke him. Nothing moves in the house, and when he glances over at the baby monitor on the bedside table it's perfectly quiet. He rolls over onto his stomach with the intent on reaching for it to check the display feed, only to immediately and uncomfortably discover exactly why he's conscious at such an ungodly hour. 

Fucking hell, he's hard as a rock.

He sucks in a hiss between his teeth, dropping his head as he can't help but grind down against the mattress. Shit. This is . . . Not great. When he glances over to the other side of the bed Duen is dismayed to see that Bohn is, in fact, still asleep. He can't blame him, he'd been up off and on during the night because Bee's newest phase since learning to walk is to stand up in her crib and shriek bloody murder. So this is just a problem he'll have to deal with himself. Logically he really should just go shower and jerk off there, but selfishly Duen wants to stay right where he is. The bed smells like them, like _Bohn_ , and he can't help but pull his pillow closer and bury his face in it as he rolls his hips down to chase that delicious friction.

It doesn't take much these days to get him off, not when most of their sex life has been relegated to occasional evening quickies or mutual masturbation during morning showers. Between Duen's schedule and raising a baby, there just isn't a whole lot of time for the kind of long, drawn out love making Duen prefers. It's frustrating, but he's fine. Mostly. Probably.

So yeah, it doesn't take him very long to work himself to the edge, have him panting and fisting his fingers in the sheets. He keeps his eyes closed, his mind filled with fantasies of what he really wishes he was doing. A shallow breath is heaved in as he pictures it, the image of Bohn pressed down on his front beneath him, his neck and shoulders and back decorated with the sharp pink imprints of his teeth. He's moaning when Duen fucks into him, scrabbling for purchase in the sheets as Duen takes him hard and fast and _deep_. The noise he makes when he comes is obscene, a high and wavering keen, but Duen doesn't slow his pace. Instead he shallows his thrusts, grinds into that tight heat until he can feel his knot catching, sticking, has Bohn groaning as he clenches around him. He's desperate to fill him, plug him up and keep them tied together, claim him until he's breathless and satiated and pliant in his arms.

"Aw, you're having all the fun without me."

Duen jerks out of his daydreams with a gasp, brought back from the precipice of release as a warm, familiar hand brushes over his spine. When he glances over he's startled to see Bohn staring at him, propped up on his side. His eyes are dark, hungry, and Duen barely even stops to think before he rolls over and pins him down on the bed. 

"Oh?" Bohn laughs, light and unquestionably excited. He wiggles a little in Duen's grip on his wrists, a smirk blooming on his face. "What have we here?"

Cute, Duen thinks, but they really don't have time for this. "Yes or no," he prompts, low and heated. 

The answer is instant, a hitched and needy purred out affirmative, and that's all Duen needs to take what he wants. He hooks his fingers under the waistband of Bohn's sweatpants and hauls them off, tossing them to the end of the bed. "Try and be a _little_ quieter this time," he warns as he pulls himself out of his boxers, tugs Bohn's legs up around his waist and lines them up. Not that he doesn't love the noises Bohn makes, but he's been really loud lately when they do find chances for this, and Duen would like to avoid an awkward conversation with their eleven year old. 

Unfortunately Bohn is _not_ quiet. And Duen has to pull out as soon as he's inside him to flip him over. "Bite the pillow if you have to," he growls, and Bohn nods. This time the sound he makes is muffled, but no less filthy. Duen can't help choking on a groan of his own either as he sheaths himself in the heat of him, and he shifts to grip Bohn's hips, pulls him that much closer as he pants across his shoulder blades. 

"D-don't knot," Bohn reminds hoarsely. The regret in his voice is obvious, but it still twists at something unsteady in Duen's chest, has him biting his lip as he adjusts so that the already swelling bulb of his knot is no longer insistently pressing against Bohn every time he rolls his hips forwards. Bohn whimpers as he does it, equally as displeased. It's necessary though. They can't spend fifteen minutes to half hour tied together when they have a baby that could wake up and need their attention at any moment. 

It's not much different than the last dozen or so of their couplings, dirty, fast, desperate. Bohn comes easily, mewling around a broken series of shuddering, near sobs, fingers clenching in the pillow he tries to soften the sounds with. Duen fucks him through it, gritting his teeth as Bohn ripples and flutters around him. He doesn't want to tip over that edge himself yet, aches to have Bohn trembling beneath him again, even while he's still gasping with aftershocks. If he can't knot him, at the very least he's going to drive him wild. 

There's possessive fire in the roughness with which he sinks his teeth into the back of Bohn's neck, and the growl that rumbles through him is awash with raw instinct. He can taste the heat of his skin, the scent of him that's both a balm and a kindle. It takes everything he has not to just press forward, plunge that last of himself into him and bind them. He fixates his focus elsewhere instead to combat it, wraps an arm securely around Bohn's middle as he tugs his hips up far enough that he can get the fingers of his other hand where they're needed. 

" _Fuck_ ," Bohn whines, " _baby_ , you're going to make me-"

Sometimes, Duen wonders if Bohn knows how much that single adoration affects him. He has to pull back as Bohn topples into ecstasy again, his own breathing labored now as he struggles not to grind into him. The panting, choked litany of, " _Oh_ _god, oh god, baby_ ," that Bohn strings out on every crashing wake of it is too much. It claws at his already unsteady control, and has him pushed too far, too fast, and he reaches down and squeezes harsh fingers around the base of his cock above the knot to barricade himself from taking what he wants as he spills into his partner with a staggered groan. 

Bohn is still a bit frayed when he pulls out, his ribcage heaving with deep, steady inhales and exhales that pitch into a whimper when he's left empty. Duen sits back on his heels to observe him, keeps Bohn’s hips pulled up as he views the mess he's made with a low, displeased growl. There’s cum dripping out of Bohn's core in a slow, slick slide, and Duen can't help but press two fingers into him to try and keep it in. Bohn squirms as soon as he does it, his hands bunching up the sheets again as a shiver works through him. " _F-fuck_ ," he gasps, oversensitive, bearing down on Duen's fingers inside him. "You trying to put another baby in me?" He teases.

That snaps Duen out of it, and he lets Bohn sink down across the mattress with a muted apology. Bohn just hums in response though, clearly unbothered, and when Duen leans down over him, presses his weight across his back, he purrs. "Sorry," Duen whispers again, nosing at the shell of Bohn's ear, the hinge of his jaw. He drags his teeth over his throat, feels the vibration of his boyfriend's contented rumble against his tongue before he leaves a kiss in the same spot. 

"Mm," Bohn acknowledges. "Don't be. It's fine."

It's not though, and Duen grasps at straws for how to explain why. But the words don't come, they stall somewhere in his lungs before they're even fully formed. They've just had sex, but it's left him agonizingly unfulfilled. And as much as Duen likes to think he's not that kind of alpha, he apparently _is_. 

He hasn't knotted Bohn in a little over a year, and it's becoming a problem.

~~~***~~~

On Friday mornings Duen takes his breakfast in his home office, leaves the door cracked, and sits through two online lectures. He pins the video feed of the instructor to the top left corner of the screen of the desktop, and opens his word document of notes beneath it. This early in the morning he's usually able to get through both courses without interruption, and by the time the hour rolls over to eleven he's stiff at the shoulders when he logs off and stretches his arms over his head with a huff. His back cracks a little and he frowns at how good it feels. He should probably stop hunching over the keyboard like that, maybe invest in a better computer chair if he's going to continue padding his courseload out with stuff he can do from home. Having back problems before he's even thirty isn't on his list of life goals. 

The door creaks open a little further, and Duen twists around in his seat just far enough to spot a puff of dark hair disappearing back behind the frame. His ears catch a giggle, two of them actually, one high and one low and muffled, and he's torn between smiling and rolling his eyes. "It can't possibly be lunch time yet," he says, giving in to the smile. Also it definitely isn't lunch time, since he's the one that makes it on the days that he's home.

There's a flurry of whispering from the hall, some of it nothing more than nonsensical imitation, and then the door is pushed open fully. Bee stands there on unsteady legs, Bohn's palm braced against her back where he's sitting on the carpet behind her. She puts her hands up as soon as Duen is revealed to her and shrieks. It's always shrieking lately. Still, Duen is delighted, especially when she starts to take a series of mostly wobbly steps towards him. She's only been walking for a week or so, but she's confident in it despite how often she ends up falling on her butt. She reaches him just as he gets to his feet, her tiny chubby hands outstretched for him, and Duen laughs as he obligingly scoops her up into his arms. 

"Who let this little bumble-Bee loose in my office?" he coos, pecking a kiss to her cheek. Bee burbles at him, all meaningless gibberish, but he nods along obligingly anyways. "Ah, I see. That sounds super exciting. What else?" He gets another few sentences of baby jabber in reply, and then she twists in his grasp to flail a fist in Bohn's direction where he's still sitting cross-legged just beyond the door. 

"Da!"

"Me!" Bohn replies instantly, elated as he always is when their daughter addresses him directly. He stands and makes his way over, "What's up, cute stuff?" Apparently having not called him over for any particular reason other than attention, Bee just stares at him with her hand shoved in her mouth. Bohn smiles regardless though and leans down to nuzzle over the top of her head. "Hey," he says, tapping at her chin until she looks at him again as he sidles up a little closer to Duen's side. "Can you say 'phorh?'" Bohn points to him when he says it, and Duen freezes a little as Bee turns curious eyes towards him. "Come on, try it," Bohn encourages. "Who's this? Say 'phorh.'"

Duen holds his breath as Bee pops her fingers out of her mouth. She continues to gaze up at him, almost considering in her intensity, and then she opens her mouth again . . .

To blow a huge spit bubble. 

Repressing a sigh, Duen puts on his best smile. "Close enough," he compliments, valiantly ignoring the uncomfortable wrench behind his ribs. He shifts his grip to pass her to Bohn, who takes her with a tiny frown. "Anyways, what do you want for lunch?"

"Duen . . ."

"It's fine, Bohn," Duen whispers. Bee is barely a year old, and the majority of babies start with the sounds and syllables that are, for all intents and purposes, easier. In fact, most babies' first word is some iteration of a parent's moniker. Just because it wasn't his doesn't mean she has some sort of slight against him. And the fact that she's already mastered "Ben" and "yum" and "no" and "yay" doesn't mean anything either. Right? 

She's just a baby, Duen reminds himself while he makes lunch, she'll get it soon. Probably. Hopefully. He sticks to something simple, a dish of khao pad and a basic vegetable soup broth on the side, and packs half of everything he makes into carefully portioned containers in the fridge. Though when he goes to store it away he's puzzled to find he's already made nearly a week's worth of meals. Usually he just tries to stock up so Bohn is covered from Monday through Thursday for lunches, since he tends to be home for breakfast and dinner, but there's enough in the fridge now for at least twice that many days, and twice as many people. Huh.

"Something interesting in there?" Bohn asks just before the weight of him drapes over Duen's back, his arms winding around his neck. 

Duen straightens up enough to glance over his shoulder at him, and then beyond to where Bee is sitting in her highchair and shuffling cheerios around on the tray. "No. Just looking."

Bohn hums, the sound a tad bit disbelieving, and rests his chin in the crook of his neck. "Looks like you're trying to fatten me up," he grins before he buries his face against him with the light first notes of a purr. He's clingy today, Duen notes fondly, reaching up to card distracted fingers through his boyfriend's hair. And with how he's dressed down in a pair of loose basketball shorts and one of Duen's already worn hoodies, he smells good too. 

He bears Bohn's weight when he makes his way back to the counter, enjoying the contact even though it's a little inconvenient to have someone hanging off of him. Bohn nuzzles against his throat as he dishes up their lunch, warm and relaxed where he's snuggled at his back. He's been tired lately, Duen acknowledges, a few too many nights of being woken up by a certain noisy someone. They have a system, and while Duen knows it works better for him to take the evenings where he doesn't have class or clinic rotation first thing the next morning, it still leaves him a little guilty. As much as Bohn claims it's alright, he still should be getting more sleep. 

"You want to take a nap after we eat?" he asks quietly. He doesn't have any other classes for the rest of the day, and with his weekends free he has plenty of time to get any homework he hasn't finished done later. Duen is relieved when Bohn nods against his shoulder, mumbling a quiet thanks into his neck. 

Luckily Bee is also ready for a nap by the time Bohn wanders off to go collapse in their bedroom. She's already nodding off when Duen takes her out of the highchair, so he just lets her rest against his chest while he lays on the couch, one hand on her back while he scrolls through his emails and stars a few from Tang with links to articles that relate to his upcoming term paper. It's not due for another month though, so he's content to settle in for a rare, truly lazy afternoon. 

Or at least he was until Bohn wanders right back into the living room with literally every blanket they own in his arms. He barely even gives Duen a glance before he shoves the coffee table to the side with his foot and throws the lot of them to the floor. "Uh, Bohn?" he tries, but Bohn ignores him to kneel down into the mess he's made, spreading them out with quiet intent before he flops down into them and pretty much instantly passes out.

Duen stares at him, takes in the obvious rise and fall of his chest just to settle his own. Mentally, he starts counting back the months, cursing as he realizes he really should have kept better track. The cycles of mated pairs restart ten to fourteen months after a birth. They're almost at the tail end of that window. 

Well at least that explains some things. 

Drumming out a soft, soothing beat across Bee's back when she snuffles in her sleep, Duen wonders who he should call. They have a few days left (he thinks) before it really becomes an issue, but with Frong having disavowed any babysitting responsibilities until Bee is potty trained, they're out their usual caregiver for the kids during their synched up heat and rut. That's just one of a handful of things he has to do to prepare though, and for the first time in a long time he bites back against a roil of trepidation in his gut at the thought of the cycle. First thing’s first, figure out what to do with the kids.

He manages to get that squared away well before Bohn wakes up again, and by the time he shuffles into Duen’s office, rubbing sleep from his eyes, the paperwork for the leave of absence is filled out with the school too. Bee is in her playpen on the floor, chewing away at one of her chilled, soft teething rings that looks like a duck shaped pool toy, and when Bohn leans over the soft-sided walls to pick her up she screeches. 

“Yes, yes,” Bohn agrees with a yawn, tucking her to his shoulder before he disappears back out of the room. Duen raises an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t follow right away. He finishes typing out a few more emails, just the general basic notification that they won’t be taking any guests for a few days. When he does look for Bohn he finds him in their bedroom sorting through the laundry hamper with way too much interest. 

“Hey,” Duen says as he comes up behind him, very aware that he needs to be obvious when he approaches when Bohn gets this zoned out. As expected, Bohn tenses up for a second, his arm tightening around Bee before he recognizes Duen’s voice and he turns to face him. 

“Hmm?”

Duen just looks at him, at the hamper, and then back again. Bohn has one of his school lab coats in his other hand, and he stands there for a moment under Duen’s inquiring gaze. When he doesn’t say anything Duen’s mouth curls into a smirk before he can stop it. “Bohn,” he prompts, “what are you doing with my coat?”

Bohn blinks and looks down at the garment in his hand, then back at him, and Duen basks in the slow dawn of realization over his boyfriend’s face. “Ooooohhhhh . . . Shit.”

“Seet,” Bee echoes, which is just fantastic, really. Super great. His baby is trying to swear before even attempting his name. 

“Language,” Duen chides softly, stepping into Bohn’s space. He’s almost relieved to note the quiet mull of shared anxiety in the air between them, and he takes a moment to settle a hand to the back of Bohn’s neck, trace over the mark he’d left there that morning. “It’s okay. We still have a few days. I haven’t started prowling yet,” he reminds, and Bohn nods. “I’ve already made arrangements with P’Boss to look after the kids, but if you want to go over there to get everything squared away we can do that on the way back from picking Ben up from school.”

Again, Bohn nods, and this time Duen reads his hesitation clearer. This will be the first time since Bee was born that they’ll both be apart from her for more than a few hours. It makes his heart hurt to see Bohn swallow around such obvious, thick unease, and he pulls him closer using that hand on his neck. Were it anyone else, Duen’s sure such concerns would seem silly. Bee is a year old now, and for most omegas the constant need to have the baby nearby would have worn off months ago. But for Bohn . . . While Duen knows it definitely isn’t as intense, he’s not sure it ever entirely faded for his partner. They’d only just been able to shift her into her own room a couple of months back, and even that had turned into a bit of an argument. Eventually it’ll get better, but he would be remiss not to acknowledge that Bohn is still clearly unsettled by the thought of being apart from Bee for a night, let alone three to five. And it will most likely be five, Duen thinks. They haven’t had a cycle for nearly two years, and to expect their first one in so long to be anything other than intense and extended would be idiotic. 

Duen huffs out a sigh through his nose, his shoulders sagging. “It’s not too late for you to take a suppressant,” he whispers. 

Bohn stares at him for a long moment, as if processing, and then his slightly parted lips twist into the deepest frown Duen’s ever had directed at him. “Uh, no?” Bohn mutters, practically a growl. “Why the fuck would I want to do that?”

“Fuh,” Bee parrots.

“Language,” Duen reminds. “Look, I’m just saying if you wanted to stay with Bee I would understand. I know it’s . . . I know it’s going to be hard.” He’s already anticipating how that’s going to affect Bohn’s peak, what being separated from his baby will do to his already unstable emotions during it. Duen’s heart clenches behind his ribs at just the thought of Bohn’s tears. “Also,” he adds quietly. “I . . . This is probably, uh . . . This is going to be a rough one. For me. And if you choose to be here, we’ll need to talk about some things first.”

Bohn raises an eyebrow, but says without hesitation, “I’m staying with you.” He squares his shoulders like he’s offended, but Duen notes that when he stalks off he takes the lab coat with him, so he must not be that mad.

~~~***~~~

“I’ve totally got this,” Boss says. He has Bee balanced on his knees, her little hands in his as he lifts her arms over her head. Bohn is sitting next to him looking both placated and also somehow mildly nauseous. “Ben’s, what, like eleven? So he’s moody, but easy. And I’m good with babies, so Bee will be a piece of cake too. Just make sure you pack me all her favorite toys, a scent substitute, and a list of the foods she likes and we’re good to go.”

Bohn nods jerkily along with the instructions. “I’ll leave you emergency contacts too.Thara is her pediatrician, so that’s easy. And of course the basics like poison control, and-”

Boss waves a hand at him, “Whatever makes you comfortable, I'll take it. I promise everything will be fine though. This is going to be great practice for me, so I’m pretty stoked.

Duen watches Bohn’s nervous expression falter into confusion, then blatant delight. “Oh! Are you . . .”

“Trying,” Boss clarifies before he can get the wrong idea. “Betas don’t have heats, so it’s uh . . . A little more random, I guess you could say.”

Snorting, Bohn says, “So basically you’re just having unprotected sex.”

“With a purpose,” Boss grins. He hoists Bee’s arms over her head again and sticks his tongue out at her when she giggles. “We’re gonna have fun, right baby Bee?”

“Bas!”

Boss’ entire face lights up. “Oh my god! Did she just say my name? She did, didn’t she!” 

“It . . . Did kinda sound like your name,” Bohn admits reluctantly, casting Duen a sidelong glance.

Duen studiously avoids looking at him for the rest of the visit, and the second they get back home he all but flies out of the car with the excuse of needing to check the backyard fence. Which, to be fair, he actually does. He also spends a good hour prowling around the perimeter of the yard and house in general, only sneaking back inside when the sun is going down. Dinner is guay teow with chicken, and he spends most of the preparation of it with Ben, who has taken an interest in his cooking as of late. 

He’s a good helper, and Duen’s even upgraded him to the privilege of cutting the vegetables. Ben is a diligent student, eager and focused, and every time they work on a meal together he dutifully writes down every step in a notebook. “It’s my cookbook,” he informs once after Duen asks, and then immediately tries to squirm away when Duen bundles him up into a hug. Bohn tells him not to get too excited, because Ben’s in the habit lately of keeping a notebook for everything he’s interested in, but Duen is still extremely flattered regardless. Even if it’s not something Ben keeps up with in the future, Duen will treasure these moments for the rest of his life. 

By the time dinner is over and the rest of the leftovers have been stored away, Duen’s faux prowling has started to morph into actual prowling. And he’s horrified to find that prowling a house is a _lot_ more work than prowling an apartment. There’s both a front and back door to check, and a garage door on top of that. Not to mention the innumerable windows, all of which have latches and screens that he has to test, retest, and test again. It’s just a little bit exhausting, and equally as frustrating, especially because he knows he’ll just end up doing it all over again at least another half dozen times during the weekend before the rut sets in. It always feels like he can never be sure. There’s a chance he could have missed something, overlooked some gap in the security of their territory, and just the thought of that has his hackles rising.

It’s not for him that he does it either. Duen can handle himself even during a rut. But heats leave Bohn vulnerable, and no matter how unlikely it is, if something happens and Duen could have prevented it just by making sure the fucking locks were done up correctly, he’ll never forgive himself. Not that anyone would be able to even touch Bohn, he thinks as he runs a hand over the seams of one of the air conditioner units tucked into a windowsill. They’d have to go through him first, but he doesn’t want it to get that far, either. 

“I can smell you getting worked up from halfway across the house.”

Duen turns on his heels, startled out of his nervous thoughts by Bohn’s voice as he enters the room. It’s the former nursery, Duen realizes with a start, so caught up in what he was doing that he hadn’t noticed where he’d ended up. Bohn has Bee on his hip, and she’s rubbing her balled fists over her eyes. Duen reaches for her without so much as a second thought, and Bohn relinquishes her just as easily. “Someone’s tired,” Duen comments, and as if in reply Bee buries her face in his shoulder with a muffled whine. 

“It’s almost eleven,” Bohn says quietly. 

“That late?” Duen exclaims, surprised until he guiltily remembers that it’s technically his night. Pre-rut instincts or not, he should have already taken over with Bee pretty much as soon as he was done with dinner. He curses internally, stomach twisting with instant regret. 

For some reason though it’s Bohn who apologizes before he can. “Sorry,” he says. “She was fussy, but I couldn’t get her settled. She seems fine now, though,” he adds, nodding to where Bee is indeed dozing off at Duen’s shoulder. “Maybe she just wanted you.”

Duen highly doubts that, but doesn’t protest it verbally. “I’ve got her,” he assures instead, “if you want to sleep.” Bee has both fists clutched into the fabric of his shirt, clearly content where she is for now. Duen doesn’t mind, far from it, and he figures that even if he himself doesn’t manage any sleep tonight he can at least do this much. 

Bohn doesn’t make as if to leave though, and after a heartbeat Duen is dismayed to see him fold his arms across his chest. “Hey,” Bohn asks slowly, “can I ask you something?”

Always. Anything. Forever. “Yeah.” He knows what he’s going to ask, because unfortunately Duen has never exactly been subtle in hiding when something is upsetting him. Even something as ultimately inconsequential, and silly, as this. 

“It bothers you that Bee hasn’t called you phorh yet, doesn’t it,” Bohn says quietly, and it’s not a question. He already knows. “She’s just a baby, Duen. It’s not . . .”

“I know,” Duen whispers. He holds Bee a little closer as he says it, and she yawns over his shoulder. And he does know, really. Of course it’s not her fault.

But it is, perhaps, his. 

Even with his cut class schedule, his shorter clinic shifts, he’s still not home as much as he’d like to be. At the very least he’s not home as much as both Bohn and Ben are. It makes sense that Bee would say their names first. The incident from that afternoon though, with Boss, that stings a little. 

Maybe . . . Maybe he’s just not good enough. 

Case in point being this evening. He should have been the one to put her to bed, but Bohn has clearly been pacing the house with her for hours now trying to get her settled. And Duen has been, what? Prowling? He’s more than capable of pushing back against those instincts, he should have been with her, instead of letting it overwhelm him just because he was upset that his kid had said someone else’s name before his. God, he really is a shitty father.

Something of his self loathing must show on his face though, because Bohn makes a soft, guttural noise in the back of his throat, and reaches for him. His hands tangle in the hair at the back of Duen’s neck, and when he steps into his space nuzzle at Duen’s throat he’s careful not to disturb Bee on the other side. “Baby, _no_. It’s not that, either. Bee adores you. When you’re not here I have to take her into your office to prove it, because now that she’s walking she’ll try to escape down the hallway and look for you herself. The syllables are just harder for her to say. It has nothing to do with whether or not she loves you.”

Bohn has never lied to him, not since they’d agreed not to keep secrets, but still Duen finds himself swallowing down around a well of disbelief. Even if it is true, the fact that Bee apparently looks for him when he’s not home _hurts_. But what can he say to that? What response can he offer to Bohn’s reassurances that won’t just ring of more injured, unrepressed regret. So instead he just nods, his arms tightening around Bee a little bit more. “I can take it from here,” he insists again. “You really should rest.” They have maybe another full day tops before Bohn will need that energy, and Duen can at least do this much.

Even if he should be doing more.

Bohn steps back with obvious reluctance, but his hands linger, thumbs smoothing over Duen’s cheeks as he gazes at him. “Alright,” he agrees. It’s not the best place to leave this conversation, but Duen doesn’t know what else to say that hasn’t already been said. Bohn is well aware of his anxieties, his fears. Rehashing them won’t solve anything. “Maybe a little time with her will help,” Bohn relents after a beat. “Also, you’re right. I’m tired as fuck, so I’m gonna go crash.”

“Fuh,” Bee mumbles sleepily against Duen’s shoulder.

Laughing, Bohn crowds into his space again to kiss him, an affection Duen returns without hesitation. “Try not to be up all night, alright? You need to sleep, too.”

He says it so flippantly, knowing full well it’s a statement that’s easier said than done, especially lately, and Duen rolls his eyes at him when Bohn blows him a kiss as he exits to go collapse on their bed. And it’s not like Duen doesn’t try. Really, he does. It’s just that every time he even attempts to disengage Bee’s grip on him and lower her into her crib he ends up with a full meltdown on his hands. 

He hates it when she cries, especially like this. She’s grumpy the second he starts to move her away from his body, and tearful whenever he does manage to disengage her completely. He dreads waking Bohn up with how quickly she gives in to inconsolable wailing, so after a few attempts he gives up and just settles into the plush rocking chair in the corner of her bedroom. Bee quiets down almost as soon as he does it, her head pillowed on the baby blanket he’s draped over his shoulder for her. She’s asleep in an instant, a hand once again resuming its unrelenting hold on his shirt. He rocks with her for awhile anyways, tracing out shapes and letters across her back as the minutes drift into hours. 

What time he nods off himself he doesn’t know, but the sun has crested the horizon when a hand cards through his hair and stirs him awake again. Bohn is perched on the arm of the rocking chair beside him, the glow of morning casting halcyon golds into his hair. God, he’s gorgeous. There’s a soft warmth in his eyes, a fondness Duen will never get tired of seeing reflected back at him, and when he shifts to brush Duen’s bangs back from his eyes again he whispers, “Were you here all night?”

“Well considering it seems to be morning now, I guess so,” Duen supplies somewhat wryly. Bohn just grins at him though, and after a moment of fumbling produces his phone from the pocket of the basketball shorts he’s wearing to show off his new home screen background. The picture must have been taken mere minutes ago, a perfect portrait of Duen fast asleep in the chair, Bee cradled to his chest, and the room bathed in the first pink rays of the morning. “Send me that,” Duen demands, and Bohn snickers into a hand as he does so. 

“It’s just a little after six,” Bohn whispers afterwards. “Come to bed for awhile, we can sleep in.”

As always, Duen is amazed by how easily Bohn disentangles Bee from him. She doesn’t even wake, instead curling into his embrace while he crosses the room to deposit her soundly in her crib. “Magic man,” Duen yawns, smiling when Bohn has to bite back on another laugh. “How do you do it?”

“Ah, she’s just bored of me,” Bohn laments lightly, turning around to tug Duen to his feet. “You’re the cool, interesting dad, so she wants to snuggle up to you. Now come on, I want to snuggle up on you too.”

Really, Duen’s not sure how he ever managed to sleep by himself. It seems so long ago now that he’d been stacking pillows between them on the bed, wary of an intimacy he’d never had. He can’t imagine going back to that. Bohn has always been clingy, eager to be close, to hold and be held in return, and once Duen got over all his quiet trepidations, he’d been all too eager to accept that.

Bohn tugs him down onto the bed and rolls them until Duen’s head is on his chest and their legs are tangled together. Duen tucks himself up against his side as far as he can, slips an arm beneath Bohn’s body and throws the other around his waist while Bohn presses lazy kisses over his hairline. He likes mornings like this best, when the house is silent for just a little while, the dawn peeking through the curtains, and the room is laced in the low and happy scent of home. There’s the faintest, honeyed taste in the air, and when Duen nuzzles a cheek over Bohn’s sternum it sparks up a heady flash of interest in him that he quickly cools with a tired sigh. “Should probably set an alarm,” he mumbles, already only half with it as Bohn threads his fingers in his hair. “We shouldn’t drop the kids off any later than noon.”

“Yeah,” Bohn agrees, though they both know they’ll probably be up long before that. Duen can’t even remember the last time an actual alarm woke either of them. 

Still, he drifts off in the quiet lull of the morning, eased back to sleep by Bohn’s hands in his hair, the thrum of his heart beneath his ear, and the warmth of every place they’re wound up in each other.

~~~***~~~

Despite Bohn’s earlier unease he’s able to hand Bee over to Boss without much fuss. Sure he kisses her a couple extra times, holds her for a few minutes longer than he usually might, but in the end he gets back into the car and waves out the window at her and Ben without a single tear. And maybe Duen is staring too much when he does it, because after a moment Bohn turns to look at him with a toothy, knowing grin. “You thought I was going to cry, didn’t you?” he teases.

“No,” Duen denies, shortly followed by a sigh of, “Maybe. Are you okay though?”

Bohn nods, stretching his arms over his head in the passenger seat and arching his back. It’s a very rude display, all things considered, and Duen quickly starts the car to avoid thinking about it too much. That honeyed scent is starting to be a little more apparent in the air, and it’s already making him a bit nuts. He really doesn’t need any extra trigger to make him pounce. “I mean,” Bohn says, apparently finished cracking his back in the lewdest manner possible, “yeah, sure, it sucks. And it’s probably going to hit me like a fucking semi truck later, apologies in advance. But also I’m like . . . Really, really horny.”

Duen pulls the car over before they’re even out of the neighborhood. For fuck’s sake. 

“Look,” he starts, wary when Bohn just twists in his seat with an already fairly feral grin. “Before we do this, we have to talk.”

“We’re talking right now,” Bohn purrs.

“Seriously,” Duen amends. “Because I . . . This is going to be . . .” He stops, sighing and rubbing at his temples as he tries to figure out the best way to explain this in a way that won’t sound, well, as terrifying as it feels. “It’s been bothering me,” he admits thickly, “that I haven’t been knotting you.”

Bohn blinks at him for a second. “Oh? Well, I mean, it’s not like that hasn’t been on my mind too. I like that a lot, so-”

“No,” Duen cuts him off. “I mean, it’s _really_ been bothering me. In a . . .” A bad way. “An instinctual way,” he says instead. “And I’m scared that that’s going to have an effect on my rut.”

It’s not really just a possibility, either. Duen _knows_ it’s going to effect him, knows it in his gut. The first chance he gets to actually knot Bohn in over a year he’s absolutely going to lose his god damn mind. It’s not going to be pretty, either, he thinks grimly. It’s going to be rough. _He’s_ going to be rough. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers hoarsely. 

God, anything but that.

“You won’t.”

He always says that. Duen turns his gaze away from Bohn’s trusting, almost plaintive one, and fixes it on the road outside the window instead. “You don’t know that,” he insists. “I already hold back a lot during ruts, and I don’t think I’ll be able to this time. It might be a good idea for us to do this separately, at least until I’m no longer at my height, so-”

Bohn snorts, a low and heavy sort of sound that conveys his offense well enough for Duen to pause, glance over at him with a guilty little noise of his own. “Fuck no. We’re not doing that. I can take whatever you dish out.”

“Bohn-”

“I’m a bit annoyed to find out you’ve been holding back with me, too,” Bohn continues, unimpeded. “I’m not some soft damsel. What the hell, Duen. I’m bigger than you.”

“It’s not about that,” Duen snaps immediately, his teeth half bared. Fuck, of course it’s not about that. “It has nothing to do with how strong you are, and everything to do with the fact that I _don’t want to hurt you_.” It’s that simple, it really is. Duen hates the fact that he’s ever hurt Bohn. The bites he’s left during the height of his ruts, the ones that aren’t just bruises, but actual punctures, make him sick. And he knows that feeling is mutual, because Bohn still looks at the place he’d bitten Duen while he was pregnant like it’s permanently burned into his mind. The skin has long healed over, not even a scar in its place, but Bohn sometimes traces where it was with the tip of a finger, a palpable regret.

Bohn sucks in a long, unsteady breath, a hand coming up to rub absentmindedly over the back of his neck. There are no scars there, either, but Duen knows that if he was just a little harsher, there could be. “Okay,” he says slowly, “That’s fair. But here’s something else to consider. What if I, uh . . . What if I want . . . that . . .”

Duen stares at him. “Excuse me?”

“What if I want you to do that to me?” Bohn repeats, steadier now, his eyes hard. “What if I’m totally okay with you being rough with me? Biting me? Using me?”

Something dark and hot and heady twists in Duen’s abdomen and tangles claws into his lungs, rattling the next breath he takes. “What?”

“I’m bigger than you,” Bohn reminds again. “Not by a lot, but enough. And I’m a better fighter. You really think I couldn’t make you back off if you did something I don’t like? Even in heat?” And then, because apparently Duen is just staring for way too long, still uncomprehending, he adds, nearly a growl, “So do it. Knot me. Bite me. _Use me_.”

Duen has his seatbelt off before he’s even really thought about it, is undoing Bohn’s and shoving him into the backseat. He only stops long enough to taste the air, confirm for himself that neither of them have hit the cycle just yet. Still, he’s painfully hard, his breath a little too hot in his chest, and Bohn is looking at him with such dark, intense eyes he can’t not give in to the compulsion to take him apart right there and then. Also, fuck it, it’s been a god damn year. And even if they’re in a car, even if they’re brushing aside cracker crumbs and baby toys onto the floor as they move, this is the first time he’s been able to get his hands on Bohn without fear of interruption in ages. 

And he’s going to take full advantage of that. 

"You know," Bohn says conversationally, as if Duen isn't currently unbuckling his belt with terrifying efficiency, "I've been meaning to christen this car."

"Gross," Duen huffs, even though he's tugging Bohn's pants and underwear off. And then, perhaps at this point knowing his partner way too well, Duen narrows his eyes and says, "Wait. Is that what you were thinking of when you were distracted that time I almost crashed?"

Bohn smirks, sitting up just enough to hook his fingers under the line of Duen's pants and thumb at the button. "First of all, you didn't nearly crash the car. Second, yes I absolutely was. I was very pregnant, and very horny."

Duen’s breath staggers through him again, swift and flared with fire. He can actually feel his pupils dilating, a perfect mirror to the way Bohn looks up at him as he pulls him free of his jeans and rubs an almost absentminded thumb over the head of his cock. His partner’s legs are already open for him, thighs resting over top of his own as he lazily jerks a loose fist along his length. Bohn tilts his head back when Duen can’t help but thrust into his grip, a devilish smirk spreading slow and coy across his features, his gaze half-lidded. “Knew it,” he purrs, reclining back just enough to really get comfortable on the leather without abandoning the careful, teasing coil he has around Duen’s cock. “I knew you had a thing for me pregnant. You have a _fetish_ ,” he grins. His hand twists, tightens a little, and his thumb glides over the head again to smear a bead of precum down the shaft. 

Duen groans, biting back on a denial that won’t even come close to convincing Bohn that his assumptions are wrong. _Fuck_. It’s obvious, god, it was so obvious, wasn’t it. And now that Bohn is bringing it up, lacing it casually into their foreplay, it’s even more so. He can’t help but rut forward into Bohn’s hand, flushing as he twitches harshly against his palm. When he cracks open his eyes Bohn is watching him, his lips slightly parted as if he’s actually a little surprised, heedless of the telling amount of precum how dripping obscenely over his knuckles. “You want me to say it?” Duen asks, choked as Bohn’s breath hitches audibly. 

Bohn’s fingers loosen from him, just enough, and Duen shifts to get his hands under his thighs, change the dynamics as he pulls out of his grip and presses his cockhead to his boyfriend's core instead. “I did like it,” he admits, a bit startled by the huskiness of his own voice. Bohn’s gone totally quiet, and Duen moves to nuzzle up under his jaw, bite at a tender spot on his neck until he gasps and loses that glassy, pre-heat haze. A whimper escapes Bohn, needy, high, and Duen adjusts to line them up again. He leans back enough to meet Bohn’s eyes, get that nod he needs before he slides home. Bohn’s back arches as soon as he does it, his chest heaving, and when Duen kisses and nips his way down his sternum he notes the dull, but now rising sweet taste to the air around them. But he knows Bohn’s heats by now. They’re still hours away yet from it. It’s only the silence that clues him in to how much time they have, because everything else is just how Bohn normally reacts to him. The noises, the intensity, the pliancy, those are all his any time he wants them. But what he’d really like right now is for Bohn to come. 

“You were right,” he murmurs against Bohn’s neck as he rolls his hips, gets him trembling. Bohn’s arms tangle around his shoulders, his breath hot across the shell of Duen’s ear as he pants. “I liked seeing you like that. I liked that I did that to you, that I’d fucked you until you were full and round with the proof of me.” He’s close already, Duen can feel it in how Bohn’s thighs are squeezing at his sides, how he’s rippling around him with shallower and shallower inhales. And he knows the one surefire thing that will tip him over the edge, especially this close to a heat. He scrapes his teeth along Bohn’s throat the next time he thrusts into him, hard enough to sting a little, but no more, and waits until he earns a moan for his efforts before he soothes the spot with a kiss. Rewarded, Duen leans back just far enough to breathe, low and honest, “I loved it. I loved knowing that I’d taken you so hard and so good that I’d bred you, and that no one else would _ever_ have that privilege again but _me_.”

Bohn keens when he comes, his head thrown back and his nails biting into Duen’s shoulders even through his t-shirt. “ _Fuck!_ Oh god, I- _hah_! Duen, _fuck_ \- I-” And then, to Duen’s amazement, he seems to shudder apart again immediately. Either that, or it’s one really long one, every crashing wave of it leaving Bohn mewling, shivering, clenching down around him. Even with his eyes closed Duen can see that they’re rolled back, and he takes in the way Bohn’s adam’s apple bobs around every faltering, moaning breath with unabashed delight. Good, _so good_. God, Duen would spend every second of his free time doing this if he could. He loves it so much more even than his own pleasure, every jagged, raptured noise Bohn makes when he comes as delicious to him as it was the first time. 

For a split second Bohn goes just a little too limp in his arms, his flexing grip on Duen’s shoulders faltering before he gasps and digs his fingers into the fabric there again, his heels grinding into the small of Duen’s back. “Fuck, he groans, his eyes blinking back open. “New one for the record book there, babe. I think I fainted? For just a second?”

“Are you okay?” 

Bohn nods immediately, eager as ever, his cheeks flushed with both satisfaction and anticipation. Duen can’t help but smile, pursing his lips against it even as Bohn settles more firmly into his arms. “Totally fantastic,” he assures, knowing Duen prefers verbal affirmations during sex if he can spare them. He wiggles his hips as he says it, rocks himself down on Duen’s cock until Duen can’t help but stagger out a groan of his own. “You know, if you’re really worried about it, you should just knot me now. Get it over with.” It’s already catching against the heat of him, and Duen has to lower his grip to Bohn’s hips to keep him from just taking it. He’s close already, spurred to the precipice from how intensely Bohn had fallen to pieces for him. “I want it,” Bohn whimpers when he’s held back. “Come on, I need this too, baby. Give it to me.”

Duen buries his face into his partner’s shoulder, his teeth sinking into Bohn’s collarbone. Well, when he puts it like that, he really can’t argue. It will probably help to do it now, without the inebriation of the rut and heat. He won’t be as harsh if he knots Bohn hours before they’re both punchdrunk off each other, won’t leave him bruised and wrung out. He grinds forward as he thinks it, his stalled movements renewing with fresh intensity. Bohn gasps across the curve of his neck, tangled up in him again in an instant, and Duen wonders if he can drive him into ecstasy once more before he’s finished. Pulling Bohn’s legs up a little higher, he takes him a bit harder, deeper, until his boyfriend is quivering and on edge. 

“Close, _fuck_ , baby, I-” Bohn whines, tensing up again, squeezing tight, and Duen presses, jerks, delicious relief starting to bleed into his bones as that dark and carnal part of him tastes the brink of what he wants, needs.

And then one of their phones rings. 

Bohn is lightning fast, apologies already spilling from his mouth as he works a hand between them, just barely managing to get his middle and ring fingers splayed over himself before Duen can tie them. Duen snaps his teeth over his throat when he does it, intense frustration flaring in his chest as he comes, only just barely inside now, unknotted, untied. A growl thunders through him, and it takes a long second to notice the distinct copper taste on his tongue. Bohn is panting beneath him, every breath hitched as he continues to string out soft, genuine pleas of, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s Boss. I have to answer it. Duen, please, I have to.”

Duen releases him in every sense. His hands fall away from Bohn’s hips to splay over the seats instead, and he sits up as he breaks the hold he has on Bohn’s throat. There’s a thin trickle of blood running down to the collar of his shirt when he rolls over to grab the cellphone from where it had fallen on the floor of the car, and Duen can’t bring himself to look away from it even as he pulls out the rest of the way and lets his hands move to clench uselessly at his sides. He tunes out whatever Bohn is saying on the phone, every word turning to dull static in his ears. Fuck. Even outside the rut, he’d still . . .

“Hey. Duen, _hey_ , look at me.”

Bohn’s hands are on either side of his face, his eyebrows furrowed with concern. They stare at each other for a long, quiet moment, and then Bohn sits up to get a better grip on him, wind his arms firmly up under his and press his face to the space between Duen's neck and shoulder. “It’s alright. I asked you to, remember? I told you I could take it.” His whisper, despite its soft air, is laced with firm conviction. There’s fire in every syllable. “You can be rough with me,” Bohn reiterates, fierce, certain, low with unmistakable _want_. “I’m sorry I had to stop you, if it was anyone else calling I wouldn’t have.” He snorts, a bitter sound. “I should have just had you do it anyways. I could have let that one go to voicemail.”

“Wh-what did he need?” Duen asks, taken aback for too many reasons to count. Bohn doesn’t seem even a little bit shaken, if anything he’s almost as frustrated as he is. He rubs a soothing hand over Bohn’s spine, tracing out the tremors there, the obvious dissatisfaction that lies in the taut line of him even though he’d come at least twice.

“Ben lost one of his Switch games in the car,” Bohn mutters. “He asked Boss to call us so we would turn around and let him look for it. I told Boss to just buy him a new one and I’ll pay him back.” He huffs over Duen’s throat before he presses his cheek to it and rubs their skin together, a motion Duen quickly realizes he’s doing to soothe himself more than him. He ticks his earlier evaluation up a notch. Bohn is _definitely_ just as unsatisfied as he is. “One of these days it’s going to dawn on Ben what he just did, and he’s going to be _mortified_.”

“God fucking forbid,” Duen sighs. 

Bohn lets go of him after another few minutes, sitting up with a grimace. “You know, when I said we should christen the car, I didn’t mean like this.” He gestures down at himself, at the cum that’s dripping out of him and leaving a mess on the leather, a faint pink tinting his cheeks.

Duen tips his head back and rubs his thumbs over his temples. “I’ll clean it,” he says, which he figures is better than the simplicity of an unnecessary apology. Technically, it is his fault, even if they had been interrupted. 

“Yeah, you better,” Bohn mumbles. “God, let’s just . . . Let’s go home. I’m tired, and if I don’t finish nesting before I collapse I’ll be really pissed about it when the heat sets in, and neither of us want to deal with that.”

~~~***~~~

The fact that Duen has checked and rechecked the little foil bubble packet containing Bohn's birth control at least half a dozen times in the last few hours would probably be offensive if Bohn himself hasn't also done it nearly twice that much. They're equally on edge, to the point where Bohn even stops mid nesting to reluctantly ask if he's sure he doesn't want to run to the store while they still have time to grab condoms. There's vehement distaste in his tone as he says it, and Duen assures him that it's fine, they don't need it. He figures they're both allowed this bit of unease though, after all their last shared cycle and a lack of double checking had resulted in one whole entire kid. 

Not that Duen regrets that. Far from it, actually. If he had to do it all over again, make all the same happy accidents knowing the outcome, he would in a heartbeat. Bee is so much a part of his life now that he can't imagine not having her. She stole his heart the second she was born, and he wouldn't change that for anything. 

Still, neither of them are keen on repeating that so soon, especially not while Duen is still in school. The very idea of saddling Bohn with not just one, but two small children when he doesn't even have a real job yet makes him physically and viscerally nauseous. Deep down he knows it's not like that, that Bohn certainly doesn't see their kids as anything close to a burden, but for fuck's sake they're not even _married_ yet. The least Duen could do is not knock him up a second time in less than two years. When he next gets Bohn pregnant he wants it to be intentional.

He still remembers how Bohn had whispered that, a low mutter of a confession that had sent its own conviction through Duen's veins. " _We're planning the next one_."

Duen has a plan, a good one. He's going to finish his doctorate, work with Thara at the independent pediatrics office he's going to open. And then, once he has his foot in the door there, his own office and patients, he's going to ask Bohn to marry him. He'll wait awhile after that, till they've had a proper ceremony their friends can attend, and then the very next heat, the immediate rut after they're married, Duen is going to fuck him until he's shaking and satiated and bred full all over again.

Which, technically, he's also going to do now. Just without the actual breeding part. Hopefully. 

Duen checks the birth control for a seventh time, just to be sure, laughing a little when he runs into Bohn going to do the exact same thing right after him. At least they're on the same page.

There's something soothing about watching Bohn nest. Maybe it's just because Duen is all too aware how hard it is for him, or at least how hard it _was_. Out of a grand total of nine of Bohn's heats he's been around for, this is still only the sixth one Bohn has actually nested during. The other three had been . . . Well, describing them as anything but awful would be doing Bohn a disservice. Because for Bohn at least, they had been. Not that Duen had taken any pleasure in them, far from it, but he wasn't the one suffering with a chemically muted cycle. 

For Bohn, going through a lesser heat when he'd only just gotten a taste of the full extent of it had been devastating. Perhaps if he were someone different, someone like Frong who was opposed to most things basic omega instincts called for, it would have been different. But Bohn isn't that kind of person. He never has been. And that's what Duen loves about him. The simplicity in what he desires is almost radiant to him, unexpected in how it contrasts the facade he puts on in front of others.

The Bohn he'd met beside a park bench was haughty and guarded, secured by social status and seniority. 

The Bohn he'd met in the safety of a little kitchen was softer. He's just a bit quieter, shyer, his smiles as equally uncertain as they are teasing. His boisterous air rolls over into touch-starved hesitation, and the words and actions he uses to get his way are brushed aside to reveal the truth of a man who doesn't know how to ask for what he wants, if only because he didn't know he was allowed. 

They work well together in that way. Duen is the pushback to Bohn's pull, the bay and shore upon which he crashes down like a storm. Sometimes, he knows that Bohn thinks he takes too much from him, asks for more than he can give, but the truth is that Duen fears he doesn't ask for enough. He's deathly quiet when he's hurt, retreats into his own thoughts, none of which are good. By now Duen is well aware of how Bohn thinks, the grievances he'll pile upon himself in his head. He apologizes for things that aren't his fault, buries what ails his heart beneath false smiles and flippant remarks. Because to Bohn, every upset is something he's made faulty with his own hands. 

It wasn't hard to fall for him like that, to admit it, a confession woven in starlight. He'd known Bohn for a little more than a month the first time he told him he loved him. They've always been a tad unrestrained, the two of them; quick to fall, easy to amend. But it suits them well, Duen thinks. There's art to be found in the little things, the intricate ways in which they fit together. Bohn's every action is defined by his desire for attention, affection, and Duen can provide that because he's the opposite. He aches to be needed. Everything he does is fueled by that, and he will never get tired of how much Bohn wants him. 

His own flaws seem so much smaller when they're together. Bohn looks at him like he hangs the moon, raises the sun. He makes Duen feel necessary, kisses him like he's something more than he is, someone who should never be anything other than breathlessly adored. 

The fact that Bohn's needs are so simple is what makes Duen believe they'll last. A home, a family, stability, himself, those are all things Duen is capable of giving, things he wants to give. 

Bohn nesting is, in it's own way, a symbol of that. Duen knows he thinks he doesn't get it, but he does, especially now that they have Bee. The times he hadn't nested after their first heat together had upset him because they were echoes of his heats before, whispers of a life half lived when Bohn had always, _always_ wanted more. For Bohn, building a nest is not just instinct, it's a physical representation of those desires. There’s a certain security in it, a level of promise for a future still being crafted, and Duen knows Bohn reads far more than instinct into the fact that he’d built his first nest for him. 

So when Bohn looks up from where he’s dragged the mattress into the living room, is upturning couch cushions and kneading pillows into place and asks, low and sincere, “Can you grab me that quilt I like from the bedroom?” Duen almost thinks he might have heard wrong. 

“Uh, the patchwork one I had as a kid?” he asks, too astounded to process what has actually happened, the significance of the shift that’s occurred.

Bohn barely even glances at him, his focus on rearranging one of the blankets he already has. “Yeah, that one. I like it. Can you bring it to me?”

Duen does so almost in a daze, fishes it out from where it’s been stored in a box since it had taken up space in Bohn’s nursery nest a year prior, and returns with it clutched in his hands. Bohn still doesn’t seem to have realized what he’s asked, is humming some quiet, contented tune under his breath. He gifts Duen a fraction of his attention for a heartbeat when the boundary of the nest is toed, and nods towards the end opposite from where he’s sitting. 

“Put it there,” he says, again without pause, without notice. It’s that that keeps Duen quiet even as he kneels where asked, spreads the quilt out in the place directed of him. If Bohn doesn’t realize, Duen doesn’t even know what he should say. Is it alright to even point it out? Bohn is so fixated on everything he’s doing, and Duen hates to break him out of that reverie. So instead he waits, crossing his legs and folding his hands patiently in his lap. 

It’s stupid, probably, to be so happy about something so simple. He wonders what he’s done to earn this new regard, but Duen can’t think of a singular moment or instance in the last two years that stands out enough to explain it. But Bohn has never asked for his direct assistance on the nests he makes before, and he can’t help the elated, well of warmth that bubbles up in his chest to have it requested now. 

Bohn keeps handing him things, pointing to where he wants them, watching with careful consideration when they’re placed. He has that pre-heat glaze in his eyes, his concentration so absolute Duen knows he’ll have to wait for his true attention. The air between them is honey sweet, overlaid with Duen’s stronger, claiming musk, and the longer Bohn takes to pay him any real mind, the more he finds himself quivering in his own skin. 

The height of his own cycle always hits first. They’re supposed to be staggered like that. It gives them room to breathe, to rest, to take care of each other in intervals in the same way Duen always finishes prowling first so that he’s left to oversee Bohn’s strongest hours of nesting. But the day is waning, and his blood feels too hot in his veins. 

Bohn seems satisfied with what he’s made though, and Duen watches as he lets out a happy little purr, stretching out over the bulk of his handiwork like a cat, his ass in the air. Duen’s control tenses, frays, and he must make some kind of noise because Bohn’s eyes are on him in an instant, his lips slightly parted and his nostrils flaring. “Like what you see?” Bohn whispers, cheshire smug in an instant. He stays where he is, shifting only so much as to spread his legs a little wider, the invitation clear. Duen digs his nails into his thighs and bites his tongue. 

This time the trust is so implicit, so obvious that Duen can’t mistake it for anything else. There are too many little things leading to this moment for Duen to overlook it, too many ways Bohn has either said or shown how much he wants this, has faith in him not to hurt him any more than he can handle. The air is warm with the taste of honey and heat, his own body boiling with need just beneath the surface.

"It's going to be rough," he reminds. He has to. Every time, always. He has to make sure he gives Bohn room to say no. 

"Alright. I can take it."

Duen nods. Each word is starting to feel like molasses on his tongue. It's so much, every inhale he takes in scraping through his lungs like fire. It's not just a desire anymore, but a vital necessity. He needs to have Bohn beneath him, needs to bite at the softest, most vulnerable parts of him until he's pliant, submissive. Every part of him feels untethered, loose and wild, and he flexes his fingers against his jeans as he tries to hang on to that last thread of restraint. It's slipping every time his heart beats, pumping feverish need through all the tightly coiled parts of him every time Bohn breathes, lacing more of that silky sweet smell into the air just by existing. He's slipping, the need to have Bohn's skin under his hands, his knot inside him, their bodies moulded together until no one will ever doubt that he's been claimed overwhelming. Inhibition blurs his vision, tilts it, and Duen gasps around the ragged last restraints holding him back. 

Bohn laughs when he finally pounces, excitement in every note that peals out of him. "There you go," he purrs, already so heady and hot as Duen pushes his shirt off, his pants. "You too," Bohn says, and it rings like an order. It makes Duen pause, sitting back on his heels for a second as Bohn waves a flippant hand at his clothes. "Don't want you to overheat before we even really get started."

Duen undresses himself at lightning speed, climbing back over his partner to grind against the plush curve of his ass as soon as he's free to. Bohn's hips stutter in his grip, press back into him, and he's already so deliciously wet Duen can't help the groan that slips out of him when he feels the slide of it over his thigh. He adjusts, dragging his teeth down the trembling line of Bohn's spine. Every centimeter of Duen's frame feels like it's coiled tight, wound up. He needs. _He needs_. 

Bohn is so lax beneath him, calm despite the jagged way Duen is breathing against his neck. He's shaking, just a little, but it's easy for Duen to read that it's more due to excitement than anything else. Bohn hasn't been nervous around him during a heat since that first one, and even then he'd had far more faith in Duen to take care of him than he's sure he deserves. "You're still holding back," Bohn comments while Duen traces his fingers down over his stomach, his thighs, pulling him closer even as he stops himself from entering him. "Come on." Bohn's voice is low, almost gravelly with desire, and Duen shivers, the press of his fingers over Bohn's hips turning bruising. "You can use me, baby," he urges. "I want you to, remember? God, it's been so long. I need it too, Duen, _please_ . Fuck me, use me, _mount me_ , I- _oooohhhhh_ . . ."

The way Bohn's breath practically eases out of him when Duen finally lines them up and sheathes himself in the warm, wet heat of him drives him wild. There's undeniable pleasure in every note of it, the way his hands clench in the sheets so telling. Duen is going to fucking _devour_ him. 

"You . . . Have to tell me . . . if it's too much," Duen pants. It's such an effort just to get that much out, each word a struggle because it has to be drawn from under the constant thrum of desire. But he has to have that last affirmation from Bohn, if only for his own peace of mind. Bohn nods, and that's all Duen requires to finally, finally give in. 

It's not the kind of sex he enjoys outside of their shared cycle. Normally, Duen likes to take his time. He enjoys it slower, closer, more keen on Bohn's pleasure most of the time than his own. The way he takes Bohn during rut is the polar opposite. 

It's fierce and fast and filthy, driven solely by instinct and the whims and needs of his own body. He keeps Bohn's hips up just to be able to drive into him deeper, harder. His ears strain to catch the sounds Bohn makes, filter them out from the harsh slap of skin on skin. He listens for those little hitches in his breath, the darker tones of a whine that pitch higher into unsteady moans. Each of those noises is rewarded, a reply gifted with a bite to Bohn's back, his ear, his jaw, his shoulder. His flesh blooms with them by the time Duen first has him shuddering apart, but that just makes the tantalizing sight of Bohn's orgasm rippling through him that much better. Every flex and clench of his body is highlighted beneath petaled imprints of Duen's teeth, but it's still not enough.

He should be marked wholly, claimed in every way. Duen doesn't want there to ever be any confusion about who Bohn belongs to, who _he_ belongs to. He aches to have that be obvious, always, has ever since they'd first gotten together. Bohn could have been with anyone, had his pick of half the campus and then some, but he'd chosen Duen. And he had never once faltered. Duen wants to leave reminders of that on Bohn's skin, wants to sink them into his body and his bones so they're there forever. It's not his own doubt that makes his hackles rise, but that of others; the eyes that linger too long on what isn't theirs, the gazes that see him as an obstacle rather than a deterrent. 

Bohn is his. _Bohn is his_. 

Duen growls, snapping down on the back of Bohn's neck as he hikes his hips up higher, his thrusts shallowing while he grinds the swelling bulk of his knot against the core of him. Bohn is still quivering with aftershocks beneath him, mewling and oversensitive when Duen gets it in, lets it catch and stick. It's only his own grip on Bohn that keeps him on his knees as Duen comes, the bruising pressure of his hands and the sure sting of his teeth across his throat. Bohn is so easy during heat, doesn't have to rely on anything other than the fit and movement they make together to tip into near sobbing ecstasy multiple times. He clenches around Duen while he's still coming, bears down on him with a string of hoarse swears and affections. 

It just makes it that much more intense. Duen's rut orgasms are always a lot, longer and harder and fuller than they are on any normal day. They make his head swim every time, leave him gasping and twitching as they stretch from seconds into _minutes_. He can't help but try and ride them out, especially when Bohn makes such pretty, breathless noises during. The need to try and be just a little deeper with every spill inside makes his hips jerk, has Bohn whimpering on another sweet curse, an even more delicious utterance of his name. 

" _Hah!_ Duen, _f-fuck_ , I-"

The third time Bohn comes, Duen actually sinks his teeth in, and the sound that that wrings out his partner is an outright howl. Bohn cuts himself off at the end of it, chokes around a garbled mantra of, " _Oh god, oh god,_ **_oh god_** ," that licks new sparks into the inferno raging below the surface of Duen's skin. 

There's a tinge of copper and honey on his tongue, and Duen laves over the place he's engraved with a murmur of ardor. "So good," he praises, pleased when the words seem to send a fresh ripple of gratification through Bohn's frame. The flavor of blood stays in his mouth when he shifts to map out kisses down Bohn's back. He watches through half-lidded eyes as a thin line of it drips down the side of his partner's throat and curves around the still visible bite he'd made in the car. " _Mine_."

That single declaration always has Bohn gasping, leaves him shivering on a whimper of confirmation, so flush and pliant in Duen's arms. He squirms a bit when Duen tucks him up against his front, always breathlessly oversensitive when they're tied together. Another whimper escapes him when Duen settles his weight on him, lets them down to rest in the cushioning of the nest. He's still fisting his fingers in the sheets in time to every little flutter and squeeze of his body, and Duen chases those delicate roils around his cock by pressing that much closer. Bohn tilts his head invitingly to the side when he nips at the hinge of his jaw, the ease of his submission flaring fresh, possessive fire behind Duen's ribs.

In public Bohn is always so forward, assertive and bold. There's a special intimacy to how he acquiesces for Duen alone just like this. He purrs as Duen noses at the soft dip of space between his neck and shoulder, the pitch a tad hushed, distant. But when Duen grazes his teeth over that spot under his chin that he’s fond of, humming with concern, he responds with a quiet but steady, “M’alright, baby.”

When he’s able to pull out Duen is quick to to work two, then three fingers into Bohn instead, avid about keeping him filled. Bohn arches into the touch with a sharp and startled sound, and Duen latches his teeth over his shoulder to hold him still, frustration rising in him again as he feels the cum slipping out around his knuckles anyways. 

Bohn is panting, quivering in his grasp, burning hot everywhere they’re pressed together. “Fuck,” he heaves out, “What are you trying to- babe, that’s not going to work. Remember? We checked the-” He breaks off with a groan and hiccups around the next inhale as Duen just twists a fourth finger into the heat of him. “Oh _fuck_ ,” Bohn whines. “ _God_ , I- Duen, it’s not- I’m not going to get-”

He remembers. He doesn’t care. Bohn is practically writhing on his hand, clearly strung a little too close towards another orgasm. And when Duen flips him over, untangles them just long enough to get Bohn on his back, press his knees up towards his chest and bury himself inside him, hard and desperate to be close all over again, he keens. 

There’s so much of him still left to claim, to devour. Duen starts at the top, nuzzling at that favored space beneath Bohn’s chin at a better angle before he pinches it between his teeth. He’s sensitive there from so much continued attention, and he hisses when Duen bites him, startled but not distastefully so. There’s no room for verbal affirmations this time, and Bohn arcs an arm behind his head, gripping one of the pillows for flimsy purchase as Duen nips his way down his sternum, over his collarbones. When Duen sinks his teeth into his right clavicle Bohn chokes on a moan and threads the fingers of his other hand into Duen’s hair. Regardless of how his partner’s breath rattles through him, the distinctive taste of blood on Duen’s tongue, the grip Bohn has on him is soft, careful, an encouraging thumb weaving circles across his scalp. It’s almost too off beat from everything else, too gentle, and Duen can’t help but pause completely to peek up at him with hazy eyes.

“I’ve got you,” Bohn assures, as if he’s the one in need of grounding here. Which, Duen frowns, maybe he is. “It’s alright. Keep going. I’ve got you.” He’s still breathing hard, trembling at every too-hot touch to his already heated body, but when Duen moves to cup a hand to his cheek Bohn leans into his palm with a low, contented purr. 

He’s so good like this, Duen thinks absently, his absolute favorite. Even when he’s flushed and falling apart, every moan hitching in the rapid rise and fall of his chest, Bohn’s eyes are like embers. The hunger in them, ever only briefly statiated, is constant, palpable. He drags Duen down to him the next time he comes, the position awkward with how Duen has him nearly folded in half with his legs pulled up over his shoulders, but the kiss he demands is as fierce as ever. Duen barely notices the clack of teeth, the way Bohn has to break away for air every few seconds, a string of saliva held between them in the barely there breath of space he leaves before he dives right back in. It’s just like that that Duen realizes what a fool he’s been, how blind he’s allowed himself to be in thinking he could ever do something Bohn didn’t want.

The control is obvious now, the intention clear. Despite Bohn’s willing pliancy, the ease of his quivering submissiveness, the quiet banked fire in his gaze and the insistent press of his tongue into Duen’s waiting mouth reveals who between them is really in charge. Bohn is letting himself be dominated so harshly simply because he wants it that way, and that revelation makes it all the better. It means, more than ever, that this Bohn, the one who bares his throat for him, lets him bite at all the softest parts of him until his skin is decorated with marks, is intentionally just for Duen. 

“I’m keeping you,” he huffs as he knots him again, Bohn’s thighs shaking where they’re parted along his chest, his knees at Duen’s shoulders. 

His boyfriend’s head is tilted to the side in the pillows, his throat bobbing around an uneven swallow as he holds his lower lip between his teeth and tries to muffle a still too loud groan. “Y-yeah?” he gasps as soon as he’s able, audible mirth in his tone despite the strung out breathiness to it. “I should think so.”

He hopes Bohn knows how deeply he means it, how desperately. There’s more to it than a vow between bodies, or a promise wrapped in wedding bands. Duen means it for forever. If there’s a red thread tied to him, then it’s tethered to Bohn too, soulbound and eternal. The universe is vast, and time infinite, each life and second and atom only able to be sequenced so many times before it repeats. Every gasp they trade, every nip and kiss gifted skin to skin, held close and intertwined, is just a single moment of entropy in what he swears will for them be something echoed and everlasting. “Love you,” he says against Bohn’s cheek, the hollow of his throat, the shell of his ear, all successive iterations surer than the last. “ _Love you_. **_Love you_**.”

~~~***~~~

By the time the height of Duen’s rut begins to wane, Bohn is a mess. His entire body is dotted with pretty pink and purpling bruises, inlaid here and there with the deeper, unmistakable imprints of teeth. There’s dried blood on a few of those, too, at the base of his neck and across his right collarbone, and a particularly tender looking inlay along his left inner thigh. He winces a little when Duen brushes a thumb over that one, even as exhausted and absolutely blissed out as he is, and all of that isn’t even beginning to account for what Duen had clearly tried to do to him. 

Describing it as anything other than obscene would be doing a disservice to both of them. It’s also really the only way to calculate the sheer amount of cum dripping out from between Bohn’s legs. “I can’t believe you,” Bohn sighs, utterly deadpan in tone despite the smirk creeping across his features. He has an arm thrown over his eyes, his chest still staggered with its rise and fall from their last round. “I thought _I_ was the one with a breeding kink,” he says, and now his smile is all teeth, blatantly smug. “But you’ve really outdone yourself.”

Duen covers his face with his hands and groans into his palms. “Please shut up.”

“Trying to put another baby in me even though you know very well it won’t work,” Bohn grins. “Cute.”

“ _Bohn_.”

Moving his arm, Bohn peeks up at him obligingly. “Embarrassed?” he coos, as cheeky as ever even though his voice is wrecked and raw. A few of his last orgasms had been wrung out of him as outright, unrestrained screams, and Duen honestly isn’t sure how he was meant to react to that other than just fucking him _harder_. “I’m really not sure you have any right to be so mortified,” Bohn comments lazily, gesturing down at himself, at every bite and bruise, at how Duen has left what probably amounts to a personal record amount of cum inside him _on purpose_. “Also, you’re changing the sheets before we go again, this is gross.”

Duen glares at him between his fingers for that one. “Oh, really? It’s ‘gross?’ And who was the one begging for it not even a full hour ago?”

In this way at least Bohn has always been shameless, and he merely arches an eyebrow at the accusation, unrepentant. “Well it’s not mine,” he smirks, far too smug. It’s a pretty startling contrast to how he was not all that long ago, the breathless way in which he’d gasped to be filled like he was aching with need. “And you have time anyways. I still haven’t peaked.” He reaches for him as he says it, and Duen doesn’t miss the visible tremble of his arms. 

Even without that it’s easy to oblige him, and Duen rumbles on a soothing lull of a purr as he leans over to wrap around him, lift him up until Bohn winds his legs around his middle and buries his face at his shoulder. He’s a little unsteady himself as he stands to carry Bohn to the bathroom, and he chuckles when Bohn tenses up against him with a strangled little noise as warm wetness starts to drip down Duen’s navel. 

“Sorry,” Bohn mutters.

“No,” Duen says, clearing his throat. “It’s fine. You’re right, it’s my mess.”

He manages to get them to the bath without too much of a cleanup left in their wake. Bohn clings to him tighter when he tries to set him down in the tub, the first signs of his usual mid-heat petulance. Duen murmurs apologies across the curve of his neck as he sits them on the side of it instead, his palms pressing careful paths down Bohn's spine to the small of his back and back up again until he relaxes in his arms. His skin is still fairly cool compared to how it gets at the peak of the heat, so Duen twists the faucet to a lukewarm temperature rather than outright cold. Still, he can't get Bohn to let go of him, and after a few more assurances, carefully placed kisses and quiet promises, he settles in for staying as he is, and holds Bohn a little closer as he sinks them both into the water. 

The master bath at the house is deeper than the one at their apartment had been, rising to just below Duen's shoulders at the bottom, and comfortably under his ribs if he sits on the inlaid and padded seat along one side. It's clearly crafted exactly for this purpose, and Bohn goes lax against him as soon as they're in the water, the tight grip of his arms uncoiling, his knees settling in the cushioning on either side of Duen's waist. 

For some reason he's always extremely at odds with the baths Duen has them take halfway through, but as far as Duen can tell there's no deeper meaning to it other than legitimate discomfort. Bohn shies away from every cool press of a washcloth, inhaling between his teeth whenever he's touched where he's still too sensitive or sore. The fact that the best time to do this is always a few hours before Bohn peaks doesn't help matters, either. He's edging towards being driven by pure instinct, so his reactions reflect that. They're less filtered, a bit more honest, and Duen can't help but be dismayed at the way Bohn flinches back from where he's trying to clean dried blood from the back of his neck. It's clear that it hurts, the skin there too thin, the nerves too receptive for the depth at which Duen had bitten him. 

Guilt, bitter and sudden, tastes like bile on Duen's tongue. "Phi . . ." He laments softly.

Bohn tightens his arms around him again before he can even think of saying more, shaking his head. "Don't. It's okay. It just stings a little. I'm fine." He utters it so confidently, unwavering even though Duen pulls the white washcloth back he finds it streaked with faint, fresh pink lines in the outline of his own mouth. "It's okay," Bohn reiterates. He doesn't glance over his shoulder to see the cloth Duen's staring at, instead nuzzling into the crook of Duen's neck, his breath hot and even across his skin. "I like it. I _wanted_ it."

"Not like this though," Duen whispers.

Bohn is silent for a minute, but when he does speak it's no less certain. "Yes. I did. You don't get it, and I know that," he says slowly, "but you marking me like that is . . . It's really important to me."

"It's possessive, and-"

The growl that rips out of Bohn's lungs shuts him up, tells Duen exactly how he feels about those words being said in such a disparaging way. "Yeah," Bohn agrees darkly, "it is. _And I like that_. That's _the point_. I wouldn't let you do it if I didn't. And I certainly wouldn't let you do it to the point where I bled if I wasn't okay with that, too. Call me a freak if you want, but I would be lying if I said it didn't do something for me."

Duen considers that for a long, long minute. He traces absentminded shapes over Bohn's spine, eyes fixated on the clouded swirl of the water. "What if it scars?"

Bohn scoffs directly into his ear, releasing him just enough to sit back in his lap and give him the most unimpressed stare. "It would literally be the least traumatic scar I have. And how unfortunate for you if it does end up scarring, because I'm going to show it off and never shut up about it."

God fucking forbid.

The mental image alone of Bohn flashing scars Duen gave him in the heat of the moment like hard won trophies sends a stark flush to his cheeks, and he hides his face against Bohn's shoulder as soon as he thinks it. Bohn laughs immediately of course, absolutely delighted by the reaction. "Okay, now I _definitely_ want to do that."

"I'd rather you not," Duen laments. Bohn's own personal amusement aside, he himself has always been a more private person when it comes to their relationship. Perhaps that was simply his personality, but he's also not quite stupid enough to dismiss that a lot of his need to keep things just betwen the two of them is based on how popular Bohn was in the dating scene before they met. It feels too much like sharing to let other people in on their intimacy, and sometimes even just exchanging a chaste kiss with well known company makes him uncomfortable. He knows Bohn is aware of these things though, oftentimes reveling in them. There’s a certain kind of flattery to be found, apparently, in Duen’s shyness, his defensiveness. He wonders sometimes if there’s a reason to that, too. It wouldn’t shock him to find out that Bohn is so fond of showing off the little proofs of their relationship simply because at some point he’d grown used to having it done to him. How many people had gathered their friends around a table and cooed over the gifts they’d made Bohn buy for them, or posted pictures of him on Instagram simply to brag?

It makes him a little sick to think of it, and with a shake of his head Duen pushes those thoughts right back out of his mind. 

He draws lazy shapes up and down Bohn’s back while they relax in the water, finding all the still tender bruises and bites with ease just from the way a touch draws a shiver through Bohn’s frame every time his fingers trace over one. They’re good, though, each tiny shudder paired with a soft hum purred into the crook of Duen’s neck. Bohn’s skin is starting to feel molten under his palms, and after awhile he leans forward to drain the tub, keeping a firm hand to his boyfriend’s back to disturb him as little as possible as he refills it with colder water. As always, he’s amazed at how easily Bohn settles against him. He’s dozing off at Duen’s shoulder, his arms wrapped loosely around his neck. Every line of his body, lax and uncoiled, conveys his affection, his unwavering certainty that he’s exactly where he wants to be. 

By the time Duen carries him back to the living room Bohn is fully asleep. Despite the bath there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his skin, the one giveaway of how close he is to the peak of his heat. Still, Duen is able to get him tucked into the plushest part of the nest without any fuss. It’s probably a bit weird, he acknowledges, that he’s missed this. Not just the sex (although he definitely, obviously missed that, too), but the quiet moments in between. There’s a vulnerability to both of them during their shared cycles, and Duen can’t help but find comfort and assurance in the implicit trust that overlays that. Maybe it’s just because they’re alone during it all, but for every shortcoming Duen finds in his day to day life, all the ways he finds himself not quite measuring up to the sort of person he wants to be for Bohn and the kids, he at least has this. At least in this one way he always manages to provide exactly what Bohn needs from him.

It’s those thoughts he clings to while he drifts off, eager to rest while he has the chance. Bohn is all warm limbs and quiet, happy sighs at his back, the arm he has thrown over Duen’s middle a gravitational weight. There’s a sense of being grounded like this, a bone deep satisfaction to relish in when it’s just the two of them. Duen twines their hands together over his stomach, smiling to himself when Bohn shifts closer, mumbling something nonsensical into his shoulder. Not so secretly, this is Duen’s favorite way to sleep; Bohn a steady, constant heat and press at his back, unshakable, effervescent. It’s like being wrapped in its own kind of security, every unconscious breath puffed across bare skin, each heartbeat he feels echo into his own chest stronger than any verbal promise they could ever share.

~~~***~~~

Bohn at the peak of his heats is always . . . Well, interesting, to say the least.

That’s one way to describe it. The other way of course is just to state the obvious, that Bohn is unabashedly, absolutely unrepentantly _horny_.

He’s awake before Duen is, nudging at him with heavy purrs and nibbling across the hinge of Duen’s jaw for attention. They’ve talked about it before, how quiet Bohn gets during the strongest hours of his heats, the fact that it’s partially intentional. Bohn knows what he’s doing, he’s expressed so more than once. The only difference between Bohn on a normal evening, and Bohn in the throes of his heat, is the lack of inhibition. Which had been a bit of a startling thing for him to say, the first time he’d shared as much with Duen, because Bohn is already horny as fuck on the regular. So really, the only difference is that Bohn during heat knows he can get _exactly_ what he wants whenever, and however he wants it.

And Duen is all too happy to oblige. 

He’s still half asleep when Bohn slings a leg over his waist, his palms practically branding Duen’s chest as he makes himself comfortable. There’s a feverish tint to his cheeks when Duen blinks awake, and he stares as Bohn’s lips part around a panting breath. “Hey, phi,” he soothes, his hands finding purchase at the back of Bohn’s trembling thighs. Even with the height of his own rut behind him, it doesn’t take much to get Duen hard again. Especially not with how Bohn is looking at him, his eyes dark and half-lidded, the place where he’s seated across Duen’s stomach wet with unmistakable eagerness. Duen smirks. “Go ahead,” he urges, “Take what you need.”

Bohn knows what he’s doing, and Duen can’t help but be thrilled that he consistently prefers to spend the majority of his heat utilizing Duen’s favorite position. Not that he doesn’t enjoy pressing Bohn down into the mattress and fucking him until he’s so blissed out of his mind and exhausted that he can’t even stand, but Duen definitely takes special pleasure in Bohn using him just like this. 

He’s groaning before Bohn has even bottomed out, his fingers flexing at his partner’s thighs. Bohn grins down at him as soon as they’re flush together. His hips are already moving, circling as he arches his back into the motion. Duen helps him up onto his knees with a gentle press to the back of his thighs, his attention rapt as Bohn rises and falls again, a strangled gasp escaping him as he does so. “Good?” Duen asks, mesmerized, and Bohn nods, his lower lip tugged up between his teeth. 

The main thing he gets out of this is the sheer pleasure of watching Bohn chase his own high. It’s almost relaxing to be a nearly passive participant, his own gratification hinged on how much Bohn is clearly enjoying himself. Duen delights in every little sound he makes, the breathy moans and sighs that edge out of Bohn’s lungs when he finds the right rhythm, hits the best spot. He can feel it too whenever he does so. Bohn clenches down around him in trembling, heated flutters whenever something feels especially good, and his hands curl where they’re braced on Duen’s chest, leaving light and stinging red marks in the wake of his nails. The next time he fully seats himself must be especially good, because Bohn outright mewls, his mouth falling open and his knees squeezing along the base of Duen’s ribs as his shudder ripples into more. His orgasm staggers through him in a series of wakes and whimpers, and Duen moves one of his hands to the front of Bohn’s abdomen to idly trace the aftershocks of it beneath his skin. 

It always takes Bohn a bit to recover from that, even in the peak of his heat when multiple orgasms tend to be the goal of most of their couplings. Duen uses the opportunity to sit up, rearrange some of the pillows around them to give himself something more solid to lean back against as Bohn settles himself more firmly into his lap. In this position he has a bit more access, a better range of motion, and he’s impatient to use it. 

Bohn is relaxed in his arms, and it only takes a few unhurried seconds of kissing to get him purring. There’s a unique air of enthusiasm to Bohn’s kisses during heat, a hunger in each and every one despite the languid way in which they’re gifted. He bites at Duen’s lips, a gleam in his eyes when he pulls back to reveal a hint of crimson dotting his own, his tongue flicking out to taste before he dives right back in. Duen flattens his palms over the small of Bohn’s back as soon as he starts rolling his hips again, adjusting to drag his teeth over the line of his partner’s throat to feel the vibrant thrum of ecstasy against his mouth when Bohn moans. “Phi,” he growls out, enamored with every little coil of Bohn’s body against him, around him, transfixed when Bohn answers with a murmured, breathless, “ _Baby_.”

The second time Bohn comes it lasts quite a bit longer, has him whimpering around soft, hitching iterations of Duen’s name. He’s still flushed and sweating when it simmers down though, and Duen whispers his sympathies against the shell of his ear before he tilts them over, letting Bohn cling to him as he tips him onto the mattress. “Let me take care of you, phi,” he murmurs, pleased when Bohn nods against the curve of his shoulder.

Sometimes Bohn goads him into taking him roughly like this, teases him with the just right words he knows will wind Duen up into fucking him senseless. But he’s quiet now, clearly keen on what Duen is already doing. And this, this is what Duen had truly craving the whole time. He’s ached for it, yearned to have it in a way he didn’t know he needed. He loves every second of it, every catch of Bohn’s breath across his neck when he moves in him, every quiet praise he wrings from his chest, almost uncharacteristic in their frequency. 

“ _Ah_ \- god, Duen,” he whispers, nails leaving crescent imprints across Duen’s shoulder blades every time his fingers flex along his back. “You’re so- _hah_ \- so good to me. I- _fuck,_ **_fuck_** _, I-_ ” Duen latches his teeth around the side of Bohn’s throat when he comes again, flattening his tongue around the rabbit-rapid spike of his pulse as he tenses and tightens with a high, heady whine. He doesn’t bite hard enough to draw blood, just enough to make Bohn feel it, know unmistakably who just drove him to the edge for a third consecutive time. Bohn pants as he winds down, his chest heaving as Duen trails reverent kisses from his neck to his sternum. “Look at you, my gorgeous boy,” Bohn whispers when he peeks up at him. His cheeks are heat-pink, his eyes glazed with ecstasy, and Duen can’t stop himself from surging up to kiss him, awash with his own storm of affection. 

He hikes Bohn’s hips up when they get going again, paying careful attention to every unsteady sound and shiver. Even in the midst of a heat Duen wouldn’t call this anything other than making love, and he tells Bohn as much, relishing in the unrepressed, overwhelmed noise Bohn makes when he does. He uses the forth orgasm, the slight increase in slick it brings, to knot him then, watching with delight as Bohn’s back arches, his hands scrabbling at Duen’s chest. His throat is bared when he tips his head back, choking on a harsher, fifth wave of pleasure, and Duen rewards all his plaintive, oversensitive sounds with kisses patterned out across his skin until he finds his mouth and steals one of those pretty gasps into his own lungs. 

It’s definitely not enough to keep Bohn satiated for long, but it’ll give Duen plenty of time to recover. He’ll spend long minutes basking in Bohn’s pleased purrs, kissing further adorations into all his favorite spots, every mark he’s left so far. And yeah, it’s definitely these moments he’s missed the most, the ones stolen between everything else where he can simply spoil Bohn breathless with all the ways in which he can show him how utterly adored he is without words.

~~~***~~~

Just as Duen had predicted, they do end up needing the full five days. Not that they’re not both thrilled to have that much time together, especially when the majority of it is spent the way it is, but by the end Bohn is so antsy that Duen starts to feel bad. To Duen’s surprise he seems to skip his usual emotional breakdown phase, but replaces it with restless pacing during the last thirty-six or so hours. More than once Duen finds himself waking up to Bohn being absent from his side, and after some initial panic tracks him down to the hallway outside the bedrooms. 

Bohn doesn’t go in, but Duen suspects that’s only because he himself had made sure to lock both Bee and Ben’s rooms and hide the keys after they’d been dropped off with Boss’. He’s patient, waiting until Bohn notices him before he cajoles him back to the nest. The way Bohn looks back at him whenever he does makes his heart clench, the slow dawn of realization that he’s been pacing the house, quietly looking for what he’s noticed is missing sending a shock through Duen’s frame. Bohn apologizes each time, as if it’s something he should ever be sorry for, and Duen just holds him that much closer after, soft assurances that everything is fine breathed into the nape of his neck. 

Still, when they drift awake to finally find that insistent tingle under their skin gone, Bohn is out of the nest like a shot, scrambling to shower the last traces of five consecutive days of sex off and find something clean to wear. Duen tidies up most of the nest himself, humming under his breath as he gets everything that needs washing sorted and closed off in the laundry room before he drags the mattress back to its proper place. By that point Bohn is freshly showered, the shadows of his late-heat unease having been washed away with the lingering honeyed smell. He’s bright and perky again, eager to get the day under way and have their family back together.

They trade out, Duen taking the bathroom and Bohn finishing the cleanup so that when Duen emerges, his hair still dripping, Bohn is free to help him towel it dry. He’s always like this for awhile post heat, giddy and light in all the best ways, almost reenergized. Bohn tangles his fingers in Duen’s hair for a bit after he’s satisfied that it’s dry enough, uses the hold to pepper teasing kisses across the side of his face, the corner of his eye, the line of his jaw before he lets him go. It’s a good look on him, Duen thinks a little dizzily, one he’ll never get tired of. Bohn will always be at his best when he’s happiest, stunningly brilliant with infectious joy. 

Bee squeals the moment she sees him, and Duen is happy to linger in the doorway and watch as Bohn sweeps her off her feet and spins her around. He gets a good hug in on Ben too before their older child squirms away. It’s a good moment, one Duen is all too content to burn into his mind, even if it leaves him feeling a little hollow. 

Deep down he comforts himself on the idea that it won’t be like this forever, but for now every moment where he finds himself almost an outsider looking in leaves him cold, disquieted. Bohn is busy chatting away with Boss about how everything with the kids went, Bee balanced on his hip and Ben lingering nearby, his phone clutched in hand as he patiently waits to share something he saw online with his dad. Duen knows why it’s like this, why it will continue to be so for a few more years, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Time waits for no one, and Duen swallows back a wave of grief as it sinks in all over again just how much he’ll end up missing. He was lucky to have been there the first time Bee walked, blessed to be in the room when she’d babbled out, “Da!” and watched Bohn openly weep. By the time Duen’s graduated, when he finally plans to propose to Bohn, she’ll be almost five. 

His breath catches in his chest at the thought, but he pushes down against it. 

He has enough for now; a partner who loves him, a son who genuinely enjoys his company and advice, and a daughter he adores. It’s enough.

Tiny hands tug at the knee to his jeans, and Duen startles as he realizes Bohn must have let Bee down to wander his way. He stares at her for a heartbeat, as awed as he always is by the mirror image of his own eyes blinking up at him before he instinctively leans down to lift her into his arms. It’s mostly an absentminded motion, mere muscle memory, but Bee still burbles with delight when he balances her on a forearm and holds her against his chest. He should probably figure out if they still need to pack up any of the kids’ things before they go, he thinks distantly, busy rocking back on his heels just a little when she leans into his shoulder. This too is almost second nature by now, an easy back and forth motion he settles into the second his body registers her weight in his arms and remembers what to do with it. The baby bounce, Bohn had called it once, and Duen scans Boss’ living room as he does it, looking for a toy he can give her before she gets too into the habit of chewing on her hand again. 

“Phorh.”

“Mm,” Duen hums, finding what he’s looking for and crossing the room to grab a little stuffed dinosaur he recognizes off the back of the sofa. He hands it to her, only realizing as he does it that the whole room has grown silent.

Twisting around he’s alarmed to find Bohn staring at him, his hands cupped over his mouth in such a way that Duen can’t make out his expression. Boss is quiet, his eyes wide, and even Ben is looking at him as if waiting for something. “You’re freaking me out,” Duen says, barely a whisper. His nostrils flare, but he can’t smell anything off about the situation, no telltale tinge of fear or unease. If anything what he picks up on is Bohn’s unfiltered, continued happiness, spiking by the second. “Bohn-” he starts, confused.

The plush dinosaur smacks him on the cheek, and Duen huffs as he turns to peer at Bee. Her tiny face is scrunched up, almost annoyed, and his heart shifts into a staccato behind his ribs. “Phorh,” she repeats, as if she’s offended that he paid the accomplishment of _his name_ so little attention the first time.

Duen has about three seconds to process what’s just happened, really and truly absorb it this time that Bee has just called him phorh not once, but _twice_ , then gives in and bursts into tears.

For all that he’d assured Bohn it wasn’t a big deal, that it wasn’t getting to him, he knows he’s giving away now how much it really had. He can hear Boss quietly trying to hustle Ben out of the room, Ben retorting with a genetically haughty, “I call him that all the time!” but he doesn’t care. Bee called him phorh. _She called him phorh_. And she’d done it without any nudging or prompting at all. After five days apart, the first thing she’d done when she’d seen him was ask to be picked up, and call him by name. 

Duen’s so happy he doesn’t even know what to do. He's aware that he’s probably freaking her out, but Bee just gives him a consoling pat on the cheek again with the dinosaur, only wiggling a little bit when he holds her tighter and rubs his cheek over the top of her head. 

Bohn’s hands are in his hair, careful fingers threading into it at the base of his neck and over the shell of his ear. “Baby,” he whispers, and Duen doesn’t miss the odd mixture of elation and distress in his tone. He hates that, hates how clear it is that Bohn is upset that Duen had been so genuinely affected by this. But he can’t stop crying, even if his tears are entirely overjoyed. There’s reprieve in every sob that shakes out of him, the weight of weeks of uncertainty rolling off his back in waves as he sucks in heaving breath after breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he manages eventually, hiccuping on an inhale. “I just- I thought I wasn’t . . . _Enough_.” 

There are many ways in which Duen finds himself lacking, but no words in which to describe them. Some days he finds that he’s not a good enough partner, a good enough doctor, a good enough alpha, a good enough father. His test grades might come back lackluster despite all his studying, or a meal far blander than he means it to be even though he knows the recipe by heart. He worries that he doesn’t have time for so much, that what of it he does spend with his family is stolen when it should be implicit. 

Now, he can’t help but wonder if such fears are more unfounded than he’d realized. Bohn doesn’t seem upset with him, if anything he’s radiating palpable concern. And Bee certainly isn't any worse for wear, either. She’d still called him phorh. He’s still in her life enough for her to have recognized him, for her to have approached him on her own for attention and affection. 

“I’m an idiot,” he says, and Bohn audibly has to bite back on a sound that hedges on a growl.

“No. You’re not,” he snaps thickly, instantly. There’s such fierce conviction in his tone, overlapped with obvious, visceral ache, and Duen sniffles on another sob as he recognizes it. “You’re _not_ ,” Bohn reiterates. “You . . . I know you expect more of yourself, but you already do _so much_. And I get it, I really do,” he says, and Duen’s heart staggers with belated, sluggish guilt as he remembers with sick clarity that Bohn has been _exactly_ where he is right now. Bohn knows, perhaps more intimately than anyone, what it’s like to give everything you’re capable of and still feel like you’re falling short. When it’s all laid out for him like that though, Duen can’t help but feel like even more of a monumental dumbass. Of course he’s been doing his best, when has he ever not? He’s just never seen the proof of it before, at least not in such an obvious way.

Hours spent carefully crafting his schedule, making sure he has time for everything, for his classes and his work and his family, and still he’d felt like he’d fucked up somewhere. Was he learning enough? Providing enough? Was he coming back to a home that missed him, or one that simply just needed him? He feels stupid, but it’s a stupid kind of _relief_. 

His uneven breaths hitch into something closer to laughter as Bee pats at the side of his tear stained face with the stuffed dinosaur again, mumbling out a string of baby nonsense that sounds somewhat consoling. “I’m okay,” he assures, the words meant for both her and Bohn, who is still carding careful fingers through his bangs. 

Bohn hums in the back of his throat, but accepts the affirmation at face value. Duen knows they’ll still end up talking about it later, going over it in the quiet recesses of their bedroom until Bohn is satisfied that Duen isn’t tearing himself up inside anymore, but for now he’s content with this. He’s happy for an extended moment in time as Bohn leans into him, rumbling on a reassuring, grounding purr as he nuzzles at his neck, their very confused toddler tucked between them.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is part one of three. Again. This time three connected stories spanning five years from Duen's perspective. So strap in. 
> 
> Comments always adored and appreciated! They fuel my energy to keep writing.


	2. The Lighthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It starts slow. 
> 
> In the movies, the novels, people fall apart at the drop of a hat. Months and years of emotions and affections are dashed in milliseconds, condensed into neatly packed plots to lead to satisfying resolutions. And in some ways, Duen supposes, those depictions aren't entirely inaccurate. The knowledge is quick, surprising and awful, but it wasn't built on nothing. Instead, it began in increments, took long enough that Duen missed it entirely for awhile. To an outsider, this will look very much the same. 
> 
> Duen realizes it in an instant, but it started slowly. And it's such a dizzy thing to practically stumble upon and have to face all at once, the axis tilting knowledge that your partner might not love you anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning to check the tags if you have any triggers. This chapter gets kinda heavy, but as always I would never write anything that doesn't end happily for everyone.

Duen’s favorite part of their shared cycles are the waning hours, the ones after the height of his rut, the peak of Bohn’s heat, where they’re both still buzzed and desperate but no longer quite as frantic. There’s a continuing thrum of fire beneath Bohn’s skin when he climbs into his lap, a lingering pink flush along his cheeks, and Duen is all too eager to please as he ducks his head to drag his teeth over Bohn’s throat where the honeyed scent of him hasn’t yet started to fade. He tastes as divine as he smells, and Duen spends long minutes marking out his praises in a physical manner, kissing new bruises into his partner’s skin and then biting down on them while they’re still sensitive and new. 

Bohn’s purr starts low and stays steady, quiet, content, only hitching once Duen gets his hands under his ass and urges him up onto his knees. “Gonna fuck me?” he hums, coy despite the fact that that’s pretty much all they’ve been doing for the last seventy-two hours. “Gonna-” he whimpers on an uneven breath as Duen lines them up, his free hand on Bohn’s hip to urge him to take what he needs. He’s mesmerized when Bohn sinks down onto him, gratified by every little pleased and perfect sigh he receives until they’re flush together. But Bohn is ever cocky, always a tease, and as soon as he has the breath back in him to do so he’s mouthing off again. “Gonna make me come?” he says, soft and staggered. 

“Is that what you want?” Duen asks rather than answer directly. Of course he is, multiple times if he has his way. But he likes the chance to make Bohn beg for it when he has it. He leans back just far enough to get a good look at Bohn’s face, watch with delight as his eyes squeeze shut on a hitched inhale, his lower lip held between his teeth as he can’t help but lift himself up on his knees, fall back down. Duen lets him do it for a minute, maybe two, keen to let Bohn chase his own pleasure for awhile just for the sight of how gorgeous it looks on him. He loves every uneven breath that heaves through him, the low, almost strangled sounds of ecstasy Bohn lets out whenever he makes Duen’s cock hit inside him just right. His fingers trace the shudders that ripple up Bohn’s body when he does it, track the paths they make up and up and up until he fits his hands around the side of Bohn’s neck, his jaw, and drags him down for a kiss that takes his own breath away. “Come on, phi,” he whispers, each word lingering in between further, hotter presses of their lips together. Bohn groans into his mouth, absolutely wanton, and Duen has to pull away to shift his grip back to his hips on the wake of that sound.

Bohn keens when he thrusts up into the tight, wet heat of him, the hold he has on Duen’s shoulders turning bruising. He’s panting harshly by the time he gets the words out, but that just makes it all the better. “Please. _Fuck_! Duen, please, I need-” His thighs are clenching around Duen’s sides, a telltale sign of how close he is, and Duen bites down into the soft space between his neck and shoulder as he notes it. Bohn chokes on a startled noise, the best sort, high and heady as Duen rolls himself up into him again, again, until Bohn is fluttering around him in waves as he comes. 

He’s still shaking with aftershocks when Duen flattens him out on the mattress. Bohn arches up beneath him in the midst of them, practically mewling as Duen takes both his hands in his and stretches them above his head across the nest. As always there’s something especially tantalizing to him about how pliant Bohn is under his touch. The hunger never leaves his eyes, his desire blatantly obvious even when Duen is holding him down like this. His submissiveness is a gift willingly given, and Duen delights in every second of it. 

He nibbles his way down Bohn’s chest as he fucks him, drawing everything out just the way he likes it. Old hickies and marks are revisited, bloomed anew, and Duen pauses in the midst of laving his tongue over a perky, oversensitive nipple to ask for what he wants with hooded eyes. He can see that Bohn is waiting for it already, but he needs that verbal affirmation that it’s okay even as he digs his teeth tantalizingly into the flesh. Bohn’s nodding before Duen can even form the words, his lips parting around a desperate noise. “Y-yeah. Go ahead, I-” He pants around a moan as Duen bites down, truly sinks his teeth into the skin, and his heels dig into the small of Duen’s back hard enough to hurt. “ _F-fuck. Fuck_ , I’m gonna- _Duen_!”

There’s blood on Duen’s tongue when he works a hand between them, finds that bundle of nerves that tips Bohn over into a swearing, shaking mess all over again. He’s still trembling when Duen hikes his hips up, unsteady hands scoring nail tracks down the planes of Duen’s chest. “Gonna knot me?” he goads, every word still absolutely breathless, almost forced out on the exhale as Duen merely ups his pace. 

Duen leans down over him, catching his mouth to his as he grinds himself against Bohn’s center. He’d respond, but he’s pretty sure the intent is obvious. He is going to knot him, and then he’s going to make Bohn come again until he’s so overstimulated he can’t help but scream. His hands find Bohn’s hips once more, hold him still as he shallows his thrusts. Bohn breaks the kiss to tip their foreheads together instead, his gaze drawn to where they’re connected like there’s nothing he’d rather do than watch. And maybe there isn’t, because Duen knows Bohn enjoys this part at least as much as he does, if not more. He can tell that he aches for it by the way he rolls into every motion, how easily he takes it, the gasp it strains out of his lungs when the knot finally swells enough to stick. Duen’s teeth latch over his throat again, right where the thrum of his Bohn’s pulse is highest, and he growls as he feels his partner come for a third time, the heat of him coiling, tight, tighter until Duen can’t not follow him over that edge.

Even near the end of the rut his orgasms are still a lot. And where Bohn seeks out multiple despite how the heat is petering out, Duen really is only good for just the one. It’s fantastic though, long and drawn out, his thighs shaking as he tries to stay on his knees. Bohn murmurs fond praises into his shoulder throughout, clearly enamored with every thick and heavy spill inside him. “Look at you,” he purrs, rubbing his cheek over as much of Duen as he can reach, and Duen leans in to every little bit of contact, desperate to be close even through the haze of pleasure. “You always knot me like you mean to breed me, like you can’t help but try and fill me to the brim.”

Duen growls, his hips stuttering as he tries to grind in further, his hands tightening around Bohn’s waist. He is. Even when that’s obviously not going to happen, he can’t help but fuck Bohn like that during their shared cycle. His desire is blatantly obvious. 

Bohn laughs in his ear, soft and captivated in his own right. “Yeah? You want that, huh? What do you think, one more? Two? I think I’m good for at least two,” he hums, considering, and Duen’s heart stalls in his chest.

He peeks at Bohn from beneath his lashes, startled and almost delirious with the sudden wash of excitement that bubbles up in him. It’s not like he hasn’t been thinking about it himself, but they haven’t really discussed it in anything other than the vaguest of terms before. They check the birth control before every heat, have spoken around broad future plans, but all of that is still a few years off yet. Two and a half. Not that Duen’s counting. Maybe it’s time they actually start thinking about it more seriously. “Two?” he asks, only slightly breathless.

The smile Bohn rewards him with is just as gorgeous as the rest of him, and Duen can’t help but maneuver himself into a better position to kiss him. Bohn snickers into it, clearly pleased by the reaction, and brushes their noses together when he breaks away for air. “Two more seems good. One in a couple more years, and then maybe another when Ben graduates high school so he doesn’t get too overwhelmed.” He’s so soft as he says it, quietly content with just the barest first imaginings of the continued growth of their family. Duen can hear a purr rumbling in his chest, and matches it easily with one of his own. He’s happy with whatever Bohn wants, but he’s infinitely enamored with just how much he longs for it too. Bohn always seems to think a few steps ahead of him, ever drawn to all the ways their lives could be better, fuller, brighter. He wonders if Bohn has names picked out yet the way he had with Bee, or if they’ll end up deciding on them together. It might be the first time they’ve begun to really talk about it, but Duen knows it’s been on Bohn’s mind for ages already.

He’s caught him before sorting through the baby things Bee has already grown out of, pulling out the little bedside bassinet when he thinks Duen doesn’t notice. Bohn’s been waiting, his patience unwavering, and Duen knows he’ll continue to do so until he’s caught up with him. They want to be ready next time, really and truly. No surprises, no regrets.

“Just a little longer,” Duen swears, humming out the vow along the hollow of Bohn’s throat until he receives a fresh note of a purr in return. A little over two years, after everything else, hardly seems like any time at all.

~~~***~~~

Thankfully the call comes while Duen is in the bathroom. He’s grateful he somehow had the foresight to take his phone in with him, especially once he sees the name on the screen. Duen doesn’t know what he would have done if he had to answer this in front of Bohn. 

His heart staggers hashly in his chest as he swipes a finger to pick up to pick up the call, bringing the phone to his ear. “P'Thara,” he starts, tasting the terror on his own tongue. He needs to calm down, Thara hasn’t even said anything yet, and if Bohn gets a whiff of his fear he’ll have an actual crisis on his hands. He has to calm down.

“Everything’s fine,” Thara says as quickly as he can. “She’s alright, but-” Duen’s stomach twists before he even finishes. “-Bee is in the hospital.”

“What?” His reply is so hoarse, so loud, Duen can’t help but wince. There’s no way Bohn didn’t hear that, not with how sensitive both of their hearing gets during this time. He backs further into the bathroom, his other hand cupped around the receiving end of the smartphone to try and muffle his own words. “What happened?”

He has to stay calm. He has to. One of them should, and he’s already dreading what he’ll have to tell Bohn.

“She’s alright,” Thara reiterates, but that doesn’t really do much to soothe Duen’s mounting alarm. “She had a fever, and wasn’t eating or drinking, so N'Boss brought her in. It’s just an ear infection, but I put her on an IV because she’s a little dehydrated. Bee’s fine,” he says, and it’s only as he says it, so firmly and forcefully, that Duen realizes he’s hyperventilating. 

He sucks in a few long, steadying breaths before he finds it in him to reply, and still each one of those rattles through him. “An ear infection?” he asks. Everything feels off now, uneven, and he has to pace the length of the bathroom to keep from jittering out of his skin. “And you’re sure she’s okay?”

“She’s pretty unhappy,” Thara admits reluctantly. “And she still won’t eat anything. I’m hoping you’ll be able to get here sooner rather than later, but I know that’s sort of out of your hands. She’ll probably perk up when you and N’Bohn can come see her though. Really,” he says again, “she is fine. Just grumpy and still a little feverish. Both N’Boss and Frong have been really good with her though, Ben too. We can hold out until you guys are able to swing by.”

It’s all easier said than done, and Duen spends a good ten minutes just standing alone in the bathroom after they finish talking, trying desperately to figure out what to say to Bohn that won’t end in a total meltdown. He’s already high strung during heats, more vulnerable to intense emotions. Learning that his two year old is sick enough to be in the hospital is liable to turn into a total disaster. And honestly, Duen’s not sure he can fault him for that any more than he can stop it. Of course Bohn is going to be worried. Hell, _Duen_ is worried, and he knows that no matter how much he loves Bee, he will never have quite the same bond with her Bohn does. Bohn carried her for nine months, brought her into the world through twenty or so hours of labor. 

He’s going to fucking lose it.

Duen paces the bathroom again, nervous unease making his heart thunder in his chest. The best he can do is give Bohn all the facts he knows. He’s earning a doctorate after all, he can at least do this. Thara’s right, ultimately this isn’t a big deal. Kids, especially young ones like Bee, get ear infections all the time. Duen himself had them fairly frequently until he was four or so years old. The propensity for them is probably genetic, he laments. He’ll have to look into that. For now though he can tell Bohn what he is sure of.

Bee is fine.

Ear infections are common.

In a few hours, probably less than eight even, they can go see her.

Bohn is sitting in the nest when he creeps back into the living room, and Duen can tell immediately that he definitely heard something. Whether it was just Duen’s own startled exclamation of alarm, or any of the actual conversation with Thara, he doesn’t know. But Bohn is terribly alert when he approaches, stiff and wound tight in every line of his body. Duen is quick to kneel down in the nest with him, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest as Bohn immediately scrambles to grab his hands, his eyes wide and his breath already ragged. His fingers are shaking in the grip Duen hastily returns. He squeezes them, hoping the motion comes off as reassuring as he means it to. This is going to be bad, there's really no way around it. 

He decides to start the same way Thara had. Good news first, to soften the blow. Bohn's going to freak out either way, the least Duen can do is make sure he knows first and foremost that everything is going to be alright. "Bohn," he says slowly, and even that single syllable is measured, careful. "She's fine, everything's okay. But-"

" _Bee_ ," Bohn whispers weakly. Duen's heart breaks immediately, his breath catching harshly in his throat. He's _never_ heard Bohn sound like that, so raw and utterly terrified, as if the next breath could break him. "Where is . . ."

"She's okay," Duen repeats. "She has an ear infection, so a bit of a fever, and she's pretty fussy. Thara has her at the hospital to make sure she gets fluids. She's fine."

"The hospital," Bohn echoes, hoarse, distant. There's an old agony in how he says it, and Duen doesn't need to wonder what he's thinking of.

"Yes. But she's fine," Duen says, again. He has to, he has to make sure Bohn knows that everything is going to be alright. _He has to_. "It's just an ear infection. They're really common with little kids. They have, um, the tubes in the middle ears of children are narrower, and just naturally at an angle that makes ear infections more likely until they get older. She'll probably run a fever for another day or so, have an upset stomach, and be a little cranky because they are . . . They do hurt," he admits reluctantly. "Like a headache, sort of, but with more localized pressure on the side of the infection. Really though, she'll be fine. She just needs a bit of rest, some fluids, but she'll be okay."

Bohn stares at him for a long, quiet second. "I want to go see her," he says after a moment, and a lump forms in Duen’s throat. 

"We can't yet," he reminds as gently as he can, squeezing Bohn's hands in his. Bohn's honey sweet heat smell hasn't quite faded yet, and when Duen shifts to brush his knuckles over his partner's forehead he finds that he's still fairly feverish. Eight, maybe even ten hours yet before they can go anywhere. Fuck. 

"I _need_ to go see her," Bohn rephrases, and this time his tone is demanding, bordering dangerously on an order. He's shaking, visibly so, and Duen stills under the intensity of his gaze. 

" . . . You can't," Duen says, forced now to change his wording, too. The air is uneasy in the wake of it, thick with tension, and he bites back on a noise of dismay as Bohn pulls his hands away from him to fist them uselessly at his sides. "You know you can't." It's not a matter of propriety, but safety. There are people in the world with poor intentions, no morality, and an omega still in heat is a prime target through no fault of their own. Perhaps worse, though, is the threat he himself would pose. The very thought of _anyone_ but him being within a few meters of Bohn while he's still in heat makes him grit his teeth hard enough to send a twinge of pain through his clenched jaw. Part of it boils down to just instinctual, rut-based overprotectiveness. But part of it is absolutely genuine, and Duen does not want another Ram and the Dinner Party situation on his hands. As much as Duen would also like to see their daughter as soon as possible, right now it's just not worth the risk for either of them. Especially not when Bee is, for all intents and purposes, fine. 

They're both too exhausted already to be dealing with the stress of being in public while still under the waning effects of their cycles. Doing so while tending to a sick toddler would just be the cherry on top of the inevitable disaster sundae. The plan, for Duen at least, is to make sure they both try and get a little sleep, and by the time they wake up they should be good to go. 

"Everything is going to be alright," he says again, pushing his voice to remain smooth. Bohn is practically vibrating out of his skin, every line of him radiating utter distress. Duen can smell his fear, taste it spiking in the air by the second. Fuck. _Fuck_. "I promise you that she's fine." What good is all his studying if he can't at least do that much? He trusts Thara to look after her until they get there, she's in good hands. Better ones than theirs right now, if he's being honest. "Really, it's no more uncommon than a cold with kids her age. Most children will get one before they're three years old. The symptoms are more or less like a mild flu, so with some antibiotics she'll probably be back to normal in less than a week. Statistically-"

"Shut up."

Duen freezes as the words sink in. They're wavering, vastly unsteady and staggered, and when he glances up Bohn isn't even looking at him. "What?" he whispers.

Bohn keeps his gaze elsewhere, fixated on some point to the left of him as he fists his hands at his side. Every time he flexes his fingers Duen can see the crescent bites his nails have left against his palms, imprints of scarlet. "You keep . . ." Bohn starts, stops, the rise and fall of his chest hitching. "You keep comparing Bee to 'most children' and saying this is common, like she's just another patient coming through the clinic. I don't . . . I don't give a fuck about other kids, Duen. I don't care about the percentages, or the statistics. She's not 'most kids' she's **_our_ ** _kid_!" He whirls then, so fast and unmistakably infuriated that Duen doesn't even move when Bohn manages to catch him by the wrists. Whether he does it because he just needs something to hold on to or because he doesn't know where else to place his anger, Duen doesn't know. The grip isn't bruising, but Bohn is shaking so much there's no way it could be. He jerks Duen's wrists towards him like he means to hold him there, drag him somewhere. "She's _our_ kid, Duen! Don't fucking talk about her like she's your patient! We should be there for her, and you're not letting me!"

Duen knows, deep down, that Bohn is just reacting to news he's not equipped to deal with right now. This is just one of those moments of misplaced hurt, spurred into a frenzy by the fact that Bee is still so young. Regardless, his words sting, and he doesn't know what to say, to do, to make it better. 

He notices immediately when Bohn's language shifts, and that guts him all the more. "She needs me," Bohn says, tears welling in his eyes. "That's my baby, Duen. I don't care if it's common, _she needs me_. I should be there. _She's my baby_."

Such a little thing, the change from " _ours_ " to " _mine_ ," but it still leaves cold claws to tear at Duen's heart. He's just upset, Duen reminds himself. He's scared. He's not actually putting the amount thought into what he's saying that would make that shift conscious and deliberate. 

He's also rapidly working himself towards a full on panic attack. "It's common?" Bohn says, almost entirely to himself. "How can it be common, Ben never had one."

"You don't know that for sure."

It just slips out, the tiniest fumble in his brain, and Duen realizes what he's done as soon as the last word leaves his mouth. It's alarming, really, how easy it is to make the worst mistake of his entire life. He could blame it on the situation, on Bohn's earlier absent implication that Bee is more his child than Duen's, but ultimately Duen is at fault. Completely and totally.

He watches, chilled horror in his veins, as what he's just said sinks into Bohn. It starts in how his hold on Duen's wrists slackens and falls away, spreads to his already wide, dark eyes, and then finishes as an audible, pained hitch of breath in Bohn's chest. 

"Bohn-" Duen tries, stricken, but Bohn is already backing away from him. "Bohn, no. I didn't- I- _I'm sorry_ -"

"Don't," Bohn says, so immediately and infinitely hollow that Duen's heart sinks. "Don't, I . . . _Don't_."

There's no apologies he can offer, nothing he can say that can take back what's already been said. He's pried at an ever open wound, and Bohn's hurt is so obvious, so visceral, that Duen feels sick. And the worst part, by far, is how Bohn is easing away from him, putting space between them, clearly not wanting whatever mediocre comforts Duen could even try to give. He doesn't want to be touched. Or at least he doesn't want _Duen_ to touch him. 

"Okay," Duen whispers. What else can he say? Or do? He can't even go anywhere to give Bohn his space. Muted anguish rakes through him as he watches Bohn turn away and curl into the furthest corner of the nest. He's fucked up. He's fucked up _irreparably_.

~~~***~~~

Bohn is deathly quiet when they finally drive to the hospital. He keeps his gaze fixed on the rainclouds outside the passenger side window, his shoulders hunched. Other than the necessary responses of "yes" and "no," he hasn't said a word in hours. And maybe if it were just that Duen would be able to deal with it, be able to figure out the right amends to make, but the second Bee sees them she lets out the most plaintive, helpless little sobbing wail, her arms outstretched, and Duen knows that this day is going to be stuck in Bohn's mind for a long, long time.

Bohn is scrambling to get to her the second she starts to cry, climbing into the hospital bed that's much too large for her tiny body. He's so careful, wary of the IV still in her arm as he gathers her up to his chest and nuzzles into the top of her head. Duen can see the unfiltered agony in every breath Bohn heaves in, and having it paired with Bee's hiccupping, needy cries, is too much. 

"You look like you're going to throw up," Boss says from somewhere to Duen's right. He'd probably know, Duen thinks dizzily, Boss has been the reigning monarch of public barfing incidents lately. "Come on," he urges, tugging at Duen's elbow. "Not here, you'll just make Bohn freak out more."

They make it to the bathroom, barely, and Boss leans against the door and its faulty lock to keep it closed while Duen heaves up the absolute _nothing_ he'd managed to stomach before they left the house. It's all too much; the things he'd said to Bohn, the proof that Bee had been miserable and _waiting_ for them. His stomach roils every time he breathes, leaves him gagging on a hundred more regrets. He can't think about it too much, can't waste time dwelling on thoughts of Bee crying and feverish, wanting desperately to be comforted and held by the only two people who couldn't be there for her, or he'll never get off the floor again.

He should get up soon though, if only because Boss is casting him more and more concerned glances. And god fucking forbid he lingers long enough for Boss to think he needs to help him. Duen is not going to be That Guy who makes the pregnant beta sit on the bathroom tile with him. "I'm fine," Duen says as soon as he's sure he can without sounding like he just gargled glass. "I just . . . I need a minute." 

It's pathetic, really, Duen realizes. A perfect showcase to what an abysmally shit alpha he is. Bohn is out there soothing their sick, probably scared little girl, and he's two doors down anxiety barfing up bile. It's been awhile since he felt so vastly inadequate, but in the end Duen's not sure if that's because he'd figured out for a bit there how to be a better person, or if he'd merely gotten more adept at overlooking it. There's an ocean of distance between him and Bohn, every wave caught in the middle torrential and windswept now. "I think I fucked everything up," he whispers, only remembering after the words leave him that he's not alone in the confines of the bathroom. "Sorry," his breath hitches, unmistakable, and he leans his forehead against the curve of his arm across the toilet seat. "I didn't mean to say that."

Boss is quiet for a long, painful second. "I think . . . Saying you fucked up 'everything' might be a little over the top. Especially since it's just an ear infection."

Duen snorts. That's what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. For all the pride he takes in his chosen field, he's just failed his first test on bedside manners. "I said something really, really awful to Bohn," he confesses. He doesn't want sympathy, or advice. If anything he would actually sort of be relieved if Boss yelled at him. The repetition of what he's done dies on his tongue though, unable to be spoken again. If only it had done that the first time.

When he's too quiet, Boss fills in the blanks. It's probably easy for him to. Bohn really only has one trigger, and Boss has known him for years. "If it's . . . If it's about Ben, I'm sure he'll forgive you."

It feels like half a consolation, the bare threads of encouragement. And maybe Bohn would if what Duen hadn't said weren't so likely true. But it is, and Duen had forced him to realize it. He'd looked him in the eye and, without even a second's hesitation or forethought, pointed out that Ben had probably once been just as sick as Bee is now, and Bohn hadn't been there.

Of course Ben doesn't remember that, but that's not the problem. Bohn already regrets so much, holds such insurmountable guilt over all the little things he'd missed, and to shove in his face the fact that Ben had likely once been sick and hurting, crying for the comfort of a parent who couldn't be there just like Bee, was _cruel_. Even if he hadn't meant it that way, even though he'd just made a simple pitfall for himself in trying to explain that Bee was going to be alright, the knowledge that he'd caused Bohn think of that while he was already so upset and terrified makes him want to tear his own heart out and flush it with the empty contents of his stomach. So often Duen has admired Bohn's perseverance, his still upbeat and cocky attitude towards life. He was the one to insist Bohn's history was full of happy accidents, and now he's reminded him that it's also still littered with moments that can't be revisited, remade. 

There's nothing anyone can say or do to amend that for him though. It's his own fault to correct and make right. "He shouldn't forgive me," he hears himself say, and winces at how much he means it. He actually very much doesn't want Bohn to forgive him. An apology can be accepted without amnesty, and he'd much rather have that. The ability to move past this moment, to accept these mistakes, even ones this bad, is far more valuable than the simplicity of forgiveness. 

When Duen stumbles back into Bee's designated room he's not too shocked to find Bohn half asleep and curled around her on the hospital bed. Bee is down for the count, and Duen doesn't miss the way Bohn watches him from the corners of his eyes as he leans down to graze the tips of his fingers over her forehead. Her fever has been persistent, and when he moves to snag her chart from the end of the bed he frowns at the notes that she still hasn't eaten anything. 

"Do you want to go over everything here or out in the hall?" Thara asks at his shoulder. 

"Here is fine," Duen returns. Bohn shouldn't be left out of the conversation, and maybe this time he'll be more receptive to everything if it isn't coming from Duen. 

"I've prescribed ten days of amoxicillin, and acetaminophen whenever you think she needs it. But she can't have either until she eats something. I was hoping you or N'Bohn might get her to stomach a little applesauce or even some pudding, but she needs the rest more, first."

Duen notes how Bohn's arm over top of her shifts, pulls her closer, and nods. "Okay. Has she slept at all?"

"A few hours here and there, mostly with Ben," Thara says evenly, tilting his head to where Ben is passed out under a blanket on a cushioned seat beneath the window. "He was the only one she would sit quietly with for an extended amount of time. She's pretty unhappy." He taps the right side of his head, "It looks like it's just this side by the way, but there is a bit of inflammation of the left adenoid too, so let's keep an eye on that. It'll probably go down once she takes some of that acetaminophen though. Until then I'd like to keep her overnight, just to make sure she's hydrated."

It's all medical jargon, but Duen still carefully rolls every word of it over in his mind, burning it to memory. "You've been here awhile," he says, glancing to Frong asleep in a chair by the wall, and Boss hovering in the doorway. "Bohn and I can take it from here." Technically Thara will be back in the morning regardless, but he feels bad for keeping the others here this long. "Ben too," he adds after a moment of thought. "If you and P'Yim could take him with you tonight, that'll be for the best."

"You sure you don't want him to stay?"

Duen nods. The squashed little settee he's scrunched up on has to be uncomfortable, and if he's been trying to comfort his baby sister all day Ben could definitely use the break. Bohn's eyes are on him as he crosses the room to gently lay a hand on Ben's shoulder to nudge him awake. 

"Hey," Duen murmurs. "I hear you've been pretty awesome today. Do you want to trade shifts with me?"

Ben blinks at him for a moment, clearly still a tad sleep addled, before he asks softly, "Is she okay?"

"Of course," Duen assures. "But your dad and I are going to stay here tonight just to make sure. Would you be okay with spending the night with P'Yi- I mean P'Frong? We'll come pick you up first thing tomorrow after we get Bee checked out and ready to go home."

He's grateful when Ben nods, and even moreso when the boy doesn't hesitate to throw his arms around him for a moment. There's way too much hospital smell on him, and Duen rubs his cheek over Ben's hair for a minute to try and amend that. Bohn sits up just long enough to do the same for him when Ben approaches, whispering something Duen can't make out to him as he brushes his bangs out of his eyes. 

He takes Ben's place on the cushion at the window after everyone leaves. Really, he should try and sleep too. But Duen is patently aware that he tends to sleep like the dead, oblivious to alarms, and he's loathe to do that now. Instead he settles in for a few restless hours while Bohn dozes, ready to do whatever is asked of him when either his partner or daughter wakes. 

Bee is conscious first, immediately sniffly and teary-eyed, and Duen is on his feet in an instant. He's relieved when she holds her arms out for him as soon as he leans into her line of sight, and he carefully brushes the IV line out of the way to pick her up. Bohn doesn't stir, but Duen knows that's only as temporary as Bee's relatively quiet fussing is. "Hey there bumble-Bee," he soothes as she buries her face against the crook of his neck. His heels are already bouncing, his muscle memory tapping into that instinctive back and forth he so easily falls into whenever she cries. "I bet you're hungry. I hear they have some great pudding here." A total lie, it's just as bland and terrible as every other offering of hospital fare, but Bee is two and she won't know the difference. Duen will whip her up some proper chocolate pudding the second they get home to make up for it. "I was going to go get some to share with you. How does that sound?"

"Kay," Bee mumbles into his shoulder, rubbing at her eyes, and then to Duen's heartache, her right ear. She sniffles again, louder this time, and Bohn sits up so quickly he might as well have been summoned. 

He stares at Duen for a second, his hair mussed and his eyes bleary, "Wha . . ."

Normally he's much more of a morning person than Duen. But this isn't morning, and he's running on next to no sleep in the last twenty-four hours. Duen coughs on a noise that skids far too close to a laugh for the circumstances, and gently unwinds Bee's arms from around his neck to pass her over. This of course twists the dial from fussy to totally inconsolable in a second, and Bee wails as soon as he does it. Even Bohn cuddling her to him as fast as he can doesn't seem to console her, and despite how she shifts to cling to him instead she still hiccups around huge, wet sobs. 

Bohn kisses and nuzzles at her shoulder, her cheek, the top of her head, murmuring out soft affections into her hair. "Be quick," he says to Duen over her, "maybe a banana too, if they have any."

Duen spins on his heels as soon as he says it, cursing himself for not thinking of that sooner. Of course he should get some bananas, Bee's been eating them like they're the pinnacle of culinary delights for a month now.

He comes back with far more than necessary. Three cups of pudding, another of applesauce, two bananas, one coffee, some milk, and four entire oranges. Bee is still crying when he returns, but she's settled into those baby, overwhelmed and worn out hiccupping breaths that Duen knows both he and Bohn hate. He sets the tray aside to flip open the attached one over her bed instead, using the tray from the hospital canteen to cut the bananas up equally among the puddings and mixing them in. Bohn hasn't managed to convince her to sit at the makeshift table when he finishes, and Duen sets the cups down to take a shot at it himself. 

Bohn passes her off and shifts to the bottom half of the bed while Duen settles at the top amidst the pillows. "Come on bumble-Bee," he tries, stroking a hand through her hair. "Look what I brought for you. Bananas and chocolate pudding. Doesn't that sound good?"

Bee sucks in a long, uneven breath and turns just enough in his hold to look over her shoulder and spot the pudding cups dotted with little banana pieces. "Phorh made it?"

"So bourgeois, and only two years old," Bohn laments, though the smile he casts them falls spectacularly short of reaching his eyes. 

"I made it," Duen confirms, an obvious fib to anyone who isn't a feverish toddler. 

Bee squirms a little, and he adjusts to let her sit in his lap. The tray is too big for her, and even while he's holding her it comes up to just below her neck at its lowest setting. In truth the entire bed is too large, the whole room, and Duen has to push down against the urge to cry as he notices it all. "Phorh made it," Bee mumbles as Bohn pushes one of the cups to her. She eyes the banana slices with suspicion as she says it, and after a moment Bohn sighs and pulls one of the pudding cups to him too, taking a spoon.

"It's good, see?" He demonstrates, putting on his best smile as he swallows some. Duen doesn't miss the shudder that flickers down his spine though. "Yum!"

It is definitely not yum, but Bee seems to appreciate her dad's sacrifice as the royal food taster. "Yum?" she echoes.

"Super yum," Duen agrees, his fingers only a little crossed. He takes a cup too, balancing a spoon in one hand while he keeps the other arm around her middle to hold her in his lap. The bite he takes goes down like room temperature tar. "See? Good." If the flavor of chalk could be considered good. Mentally he unfolds an entire list of pudding recipes he can make that will taste less like the death throes of the universe's last cocoa bean and more like something actually edible. At least the bananas seem to be . . . Well, they're bananas. 

Bee gives the both of them one last doubtful, petulant stare, and then starts shoveling the pudding into her mouth like she hasn't eaten in days. Although Duen supposes it probably feels like that when you're two. Even one missed meal is a lot for someone who can count their birthdays on one hand. Still, she'll get sick if she eats too fast, and Duen reluctantly makes her stop to take a few breaths between mouthfuls. By the time she finishes the cup he has one of the oranges peeled for her, the slices artfully arranged in a circle on the tray. Bohn is still watching them, fingers nervously tapping on his leg that's hanging off the side of the bed. 

"Ormges," Bee notes. Duen brushes her bangs back just enough to get a quick feel for her temperature. Still high, but definitely lower than it had been awhile ago. 

"Oranges," he corrects.

Bee points at a few of the individual slices, the motion already lagging with renewed sleepiness. "One, two, three." 

There are seven, but close enough. "Let's have a few slices," Duen encourages as she fumbles for one of them. "They're full of vitamin C, it's good for you."

"Vimimin C," Bee parrots around a yawn. She nibbles down one slice, but doesn't make much headway on a second, nodding off in Duen's lap with it squished messily in her tiny hands.

Duen pushes the tray table to the side before she can bump her head, prying the sticky, crushed orange from her fingers. Bohn has gone unnaturally quiet again, his gaze trained almost resolutely on the night sky outside the hospital room window. But he doesn't move from his position on the end of the bed until after Duen cleans the juice from her hand, the chocolate from her face, and makes to pass Bee to him. "I'm going to go talk to someone about getting her the medicine now that she's eaten something," he whispers as he does it.

There's a shuttered filter to the way Bohn looks at him, distant, unsteady, and Duen doesn't know what to do with it. He's slow to take Bee, but the way in which he tucks her to his chest, ever cautious of the IV in her arm, is firm. "She still has a fever," he murmurs as he presses his cheek to her head, and even his voice seems far away. 

Duen wants, more than perhaps he's ever wanted before, just to reach out and touch him. But the last time he'd tried that Bohn had flinched away from him, and now he doesn't know if he could bear that on top of everything else. Again, all he can think to do is fall back on what he knows. "That's what the acetaminophen is for." Bohn stares at him, and Duen's heart twists around a fresh wave of anxiety. "It's, uh, baby tylenol. Basically. It'll help with the fever and the pain."

"Okay."

There's nothing else he can offer, Duen realizes with a weak, sluggish inhale. A couple of sliced bananas, a bit of basic medical know-how, that's it. 

Bohn holds Bee when a nurse comes in with the medicine, his expression sturdy in stark contrast to Bee's rapid downward spiral into hysterical wailing. Despite both medicines being a sickening pink and clearly sugared up with bubblegum flavor, she still squirms and sobs through the doses. Duen's relieved to see that the majority seems to get to where it needs to be, and only a fourth of it ends up on her pajamas. Bee clings to Bohn's neck the second he lets her, heaving with both tired sobs and slightly over dramatic coughs, truly the image of a child poisoned by the candy flavors of modern medicine. It would be a little bit funny if it also wasn't so obvious that her bits of faux distress are born from genuine misery. She rubs a hand against the right side of her head while Bohn rocks her, sniffling tiredly at his shoulder.

"Hurts," she mumbles after a few minutes, and Duen watches with muted anguish as Bohn's attempt at remaining calm drains completely out of his face. 

For a second he's sure Bohn is going to break. But after a sharp, staggered inhale he shakes his head, squeezing his eyes closed against the threat of tears, and tightens his hold on Bee as he stands to start pacing the room. Despite the tiled floor beneath his shoes, Bohn's steps are light, quiet while he moves in the short space between one white wall and the other. The purr that vibrates in him is strong, an audible, steady highway rumble that Duen knows is more than he himself would ever be able to muster up in this situation. He's careful not to jostle Bee too much as he walks, cautious of the arm the IV had been in, now lightly wrapped in gauze after the nurse removed it. It takes a little while, long tense moments where the room echoes too loudly with her exhausted, teary sounds, but eventually her stubborn attempts at fighting to stay conscious drift into actual sleep. Bohn stops pacing as soon as she's out, standing in the middle of the room and rubbing an almost absent palm up and down her back. His eyes are downcast, gaze fixed on the floor and oddly determined. 

"You should try and sleep too," Duen finds himself saying. 

Bohn blinks, almost as if he'd forgotten Duen was in the room too. The purr he's been maintaining falters abruptly, noticeably, and it takes more self control than Duen will ever admit to not to whimper as he hears it stop. "I'm not tired," Bohn says after a moment, distinctly monotone.

Duen is on his feet in an instant, a hand outstretched. He's relieved when Bohn doesn't shy away from his touch, but it's a fleeting emotion as he settles his fingers over his boyfriend's pulse to find it thrumming wildly beneath his fingers. Adrenaline. No wonder Bohn had been able to dredge up that purr for Bee, he's running on strung-out instinct and practically nothing else. Duen makes a low, sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. "Alright," he whispers, the tip of his thumb brushing over an imprint of his own teeth on the back of Bohn's neck. "You should try though. Maybe lay down?"

Bohn shakes his head almost as soon as he says it, and when their eyes meet Duen notes the tight pinprick of his pupils. He stares at Duen like he's searching for something, his expression too blank to read anything concrete. His fear is obvious, and his posture is unmistakably guarded, but he doesn't move to put any more space between them. And then Bohn steps forward.

Heart skipping in his chest, Duen shifts to let the hand on Bohn's neck curve around his back instead, draw him closer until Bee is held between them. Their foreheads clunk together, and Duen watches with baited breath as Bohn's eyebrows furrow and the tiniest, strained smile flickers into life in the corners of his mouth. Thank god. _Thank god._ Duen's other hand tangles into the hair around Bohn's ear, brushes it back, the soft renewed roll of Bohn purring ringing in his ears. 

Last time Bohn didn't want his apologies. They won't do any good now, either. While his words had been entirely thoughtless, Duen is painfully aware that some things aren't worth forgiving. Accident or not, he'd still said it, still hurt Bohn immeasurably. And in the same way Bohn doesn't want his apologies, Duen also doesn't want to be forgiven. Regardless, he does want something; steady ground, gravity beneath his feet, the proof that his mistake isn't irreparable. "I love you," he murmurs. Always, always, _always_.

Bohn swallows, a low and almost injured noise escaping him. "Yeah," he breathes, and his voice is raw, "I love you too."

~~~***~~~

It starts slow.

The first three days after they get home are rough. Sleep is caught in shifts, and one of them is with Bee at all times. Her fever is low for the most part, but still wavers just enough for them to need to keep an eye on. She's fussy throughout, understandably uncomfortable, and a lot of hours are spent with one of them curled up with her on the living room sofa watching mindless cartoons. By the time her temperature finally balances out into normality again Duen has mastered what feels like a hundred pudding and jello recipes, and Bohn has twice that many _My Little Pony_ episodes burned into the inside of his eyelids. 

Things are fairly mundane after that for awhile. Their schedules shift back to normal, they go about their days. It's not like they're acting any different, or saying anything wrong. Really, it's all almost disgustingly mundane. And normally that's just fine, Duen likes it when their lives are simple. Regularity is relaxing. 

But something feels off, and he can't figure out why.

Or at least he doesn't until Bee gets sick again. 

It's only a little seasonal cold, barely a sniffle and a single afternoon where her cheeks are just a bit too pink. Duen keeps an eye on her though, wary now, and his stomach twists when a mere two days after she feels better he wakes up to Bohn shaking him because she's running a temperature of 38.3 in the middle of the night. 

The span of a little less than two months isn't enough time for even someone as young as Bee to forget her previous hospital stint, and she sobs the entire way to Thara's clinic. Bohn isn't much better, though his reaction to the news that she has another ear infection is a contrasting, shuttered silence. It's another long week, hours of pacing the halls of the house, cajoling sips of bubblegum-pink liquid, and running themselves ragged. This time the post-recovery fatigue wears on the both of them a little longer, a few extra listless days, and with that in mind Duen figures he can be excused for the amount of time it takes him to notice.

Of course when he does, it's at the absolute worst and most inconvenient time. It's excessively jarring to suddenly realize you've been the only one initiating intimacy for awhile while you're balls deep in your partner.

Duen wracks his brain as it hits him, the moment a sharp rush of ice down his spine that makes him falter mid thrust. It's not like Bohn hasn't been receptive, or hasn't enjoyed anything, but he definitely hasn't been seeking it out. Every tumble they've taken across the sheets, touch shared in the shower, and kiss traded in the foyer _for weeks_ was something Duen started. He claws through his brain for a second, desperate to find a single memory to disprove it, but comes up disastrously short. It's been at least a month, maybe even more, since Bohn has leaned in of his own accord for anything other than the most casual closeness.

This is of course, again, the worst moment of all time to have his world crash down on him. Especially so once Bohn, flushed and panting and brought abruptly back from the brink of ecstasy, whines when he stops moving. It's probably the loudest noise he's made in minutes, and that too hits Duen like an entire freight train. When did Bohn last call him "baby?"

It starts slow. 

In the movies, the novels, people fall apart at the drop of a hat. Months and years of emotions and affections are dashed in milliseconds, condensed into neatly packed plots to lead to satisfying resolutions. And in some ways, Duen supposes, those depictions aren't entirely inaccurate. The knowledge is quick, surprising and awful, but it wasn't built on nothing. Instead, it began in increments, took long enough that Duen missed it entirely for awhile. To an outsider, this will look very much the same. 

Duen realizes it in an instant, but it started slowly. And it's such a dizzy thing to practically stumble upon and have to face all at once, the axis tilting knowledge that your partner might not love you anymore.

Perhaps it would be more world ending were he anyone else. For Duen though it's just a moment, a blip of all his worst fears roaring to life, before he locks his panic and devastation up inside his chest and tosses the key into the void. Whether his first assumptions are true or whether he's jumping to conclusions, Duen is nothing if not determined. He made Bohn fall in love with him once entirely on accident. And if he had that kind of unexpected, phenomenal talent by sheer coincidence, he can certainly do it again on purpose. 

But first, he has to acknowledge that he was sort of in the middle of something when that horrible epiphany smacked him upside the head, and the least he can do is finish what he's started. Even if Bohn hadn't initiated it, he's clearly still getting something out of the sex, and Duen can push aside his own inner turmoil to make it good for him. Especially when this might be the last time they're together like this for awhile. 

Not forever. Duen refuses to even think it could be for forever. But he also doesn't want to keep doing something that might not be entirely wanted. The thought that Bohn is just having sex with him for his benefit rather than a mutual pleasure makes him a little sick. So yeah, this will probably be the last time. For awhile.

Bohn’s gone quiet while Duen's stuck in his own head, the sweat cool on his skin by the time Duen leans down to nuzzle over the shell of his ear, his neck. He doesn't lean into it, but hope crests through Duen’s unsteady heart as he hears a low, tentative purr rise in his partner under his touch. While he knows that it's an instinctual reaction moreso than a conscious one, he still relishes in it. Bohn wouldn't purr if he wasn't at least still comfortable with him, trusted him. It's a good first step.

"Where did you go?" Bohn asks, hushed as Duen nibbles at the underside of his jaw. Not enough to mark him, not this time. 

Next time. _Next time_. 

"Sorry," Duen murmurs. "I just . . . Realized something. But it's fine." Or it will be, eventually.

What had earlier been a bit heavy, hurried, Duen turns into something slower. He wants to take his time while he has it in his grasp. Bohn isn't as talkative as he usually is, his pleasure read in breathy sounds and sighs rather than words. Duen misses his overstimulated babble more than he has words for, but he settles for what he does get; soft whimpers, hitched moans, and Bohn’s fingers kneading at his shoulder blades every time he rolls his hips. He relishes in every moment he makes Bohn’s back arch, each gasp he earns that tastes all the better when he takes Bohn’s face between his hands and kisses them out of him. And despite the lack of ember in Bohn’s gaze, he still kisses him back like he's starving, heady and hot and trembling. 

He mewls when he comes, the noise muffled with how he bites down on his lower lip, his thighs squeezing around Duen’s sides. Bohn is shakingly oversensitive in the wake of it, his fingers clenching over Duen’s skin while he fucks him through it. Duen bites at his throat, the gentlest pressure of teeth, and when he releases the hold he can't help but quietly delight in how Bohn surges up into him, tucking his face against his shoulder with a murmured breath of his name. 

"Can I knot you?" Duen whispers, tracing languid paths over Bohn’s back as he moves in him. The hour is late, the house silent with sleep outside the safety of their bedroom, and he yearns to cling to that connection for as long as he's still allowed. 

The answer is surprisingly quick, an almost disbelieving and harried, "Yes," and when Duen shifts to catch Bohn’s eyes he finds them just the tiniest bit starstruck. He wonders if he didn't expect it, somehow, or thought Duen wouldn't want to. 

It makes Duen’s chest hurt to contemplate that, and when he drives forward again, grinds against Bohn’s core in shallow presses and jerks until he binds them, he growls out every affirmation, every single affection, that he can. "Love you, phi," he says, hating how the words stutter out, the tiniest bit wet. Whether or not Bohn ever says it back again, that will never change. "I love you so much." He kisses the syllables into Bohn’s lungs, across his skin, chasing every little, too-muted purr that vibrates through his partner's body. It's almost as if Bohn is trying to stifle it, keep the sound drowned and buried in him, like he thinks that whatever pleasure and happiness he's getting from this is somehow undeserved. But he does deserve it, _he does_. "I'd move mountains for you, you know," he confesses in the hollow of Bohn's throat. "Unspin galaxies. Rewrite time. I love you so fucking much, P'Bohn."

It's a deliberate callback, a tethered reminder to a tentative and shy confession now almost seven entire years behind them. But he wants Bohn to remember it, wants what he's saying now to be recalled later in much the same way. If Duen has to start over, he wants Bohn to know he's not building off of nothing. He loves him already, and these quiet, uncertain days haven't altered that. 

~~~***~~~

Duen is a man of plans, most of them admittedly a little too grand and a lot of them just a tad bit more obsessive and intense than they reasonably should be. He knew he wanted to be a doctor before he was even ten years old, and had skipped out on countless things he really should have gotten a bit more experience with during childhood in his efforts to pursue that. Like vacations. And parties. And the ability to hold his alcohol past eight fluid ounces. But in the end his earnest need to focus on studying over fun had gotten him a pretty good life, and a lot of firsts he wouldn't trade for anything. His best laid plans tend to lead him to his happiest accidents, too. So while it stings to set aside his long-term ideals for a little while, he's eager in his own way to start something new. Or, perhaps better phrased, reforging something old into something better.

If he's going to show Bohn that he's worth falling in love with again, he has to begin with the obvious. 

Frong is less than amused to see him in his flower shop, especially with Bee holding onto his hand, but Duen really couldn't care less. 

Bee is cooing over every flower in sight, reaching for bright cacophonies of tulips and carefully crafted rose bouquets on either side of her. She's both her father's daughter and appropriately named with her fascination. Duen loves her more than he can possibly quantify. 

Frong, however, would clearly rather she stay at arm's length. Or at least that's the air he puts on. Duen knows better. Now that Bee is basically done with potty training, Frong has been quietly vying for his position as Bohn's favorite babysitter back. And with Boss due to have his own hands full in a few months he'll probably get it. Still, he leans on the counter with a raised eyebrow, a tiny frown, and says, "Every petal plucked is another flower you're buying."

Duen waves a dismissive hand at him. They both know Bee is terribly spoiled, and if they manage to walk out without purchasing an entire crown's worth of flowers just for her it will be a miracle. Especially with everything else as of late. Really, Bee could probably ask him for the entire flower shop and Duen would bend over backwards and make the earth spin the other direction to get it for her. Or he could just beg Frong for it, that would probably work too. 

Bee picks out something for herself immediately, a pretty sunflower that's nearly the same size as her. Duen crouches down in front of her while she's enamored with it, one of her hands still in his. "Hey, do you think you could help me pick out something your dad would like?"

"Now that's some déjà vu," Frong says mildly. "What's the special occasion?"

Duen blinks. Huh. How long has it been since he got Bohn flowers? He shouldn't need special occasions to lavish his boyfriend with his devotions. "None," he says, resolute. 

"Romantic," Frong deadpans. He doesn't say anything else, but Duen can tell that he wants to. It's not really a secret that Frong and Bohn are fairly close despite how both of them vehemently deny it, and Frong's curious gaze follows him around the store as he takes Bee to peruse the selections. 

She chooses, much to Duen’s endless fondness, a single red rose for Bohn. He doesn't really attempt to hide that he tears up a little, especially not with how Bee reacts to it with some concerned, consoling pats of her palms to both his cheeks when he picks her up and hugs her. Frong is probably going to tell Bohn all about this, conspiratably and over coffee, but Duen doesn't care. 

When they get home he lets Bee show off her flower first. Bohn is, of course, suitably impressed by her choice, perfectly perky and lively as he helps her pick a vase for it (a safely plastic one) and a spot on her bedroom dresser to keep it. Duen’s pretty sure it's going to end up as a puddle on the floor regardless, but he keeps that to himself. 

His own gift is saved for later, when Bee is down for a nap and Ben is still at a friend's house. Bohn seems a little sleepy himself, flipping through a car magazine he got in the mail from his place on the sofa. Normally he tends to sprawl on whatever surface he's taken up residence, but lately, today included, Duen finds him curled into one corner, his feet drawn up onto the cushion and his limbs tucked close to his body. There's a listless sort of way to which he turns the pages, a now achingly familiar distance in his gaze. For a long moment Duen stays where he is in the hall, toeing at the divide that feels like it's stretching out between them, wider and wider by the hour. But he has to start somewhere.

At least Bohn doesn't flinch when he sits down next to him, doesn't lean away or tense up. But he also doesn't really react at all, his only acknowledgement in how his gaze shifts to Duen for a heartbeat before flickering away again. 

Duen wants so desperately to reach for him, scoot closer, touch him, but he feels like he shouldn't. He's trying to win Bohn back, not force affection where it isn't wanted. 

He starts with step one.

Bohn stares at the rose when he produces it, blankly at first, his eyes slowly widening when Duen continues to hold it out for him. After a moment he turns to face Duen fully, and the confusion evident in every line of his expression makes his heart clench. "This is for me?"

Oh, Bohn . . . 

"Of course," Duen says, and he's thankful the smile comes easily even though the look on Bohn’s face makes him want to cry. "I was thinking of you today." Everyday. "Bee helped me pick it out."

Bohn takes the rose between his forefinger and thumb, spinning it for a moment before he stands. Duen stays seated, watching carefully as Bohn retrieves a glass vase from the cupboard in the kitchen, his favorite one. He fills it quietly and cuts the bottom of the stem off without a word, placing the flower inside and leaving it on the counter. His eyes stay fixed on it for a minute, but he's too far away for Duen to try and read what he's thinking, and after a heartbeat Bohn crosses the room to him.

The kiss he's given across his forehead, his bangs brushed back by a faintly trembling hand, feels oddly like a consolation. "Thanks," Bohn whispers. "I'm going to go lay down for awhile, so if you could keep an ear out for Bee I'd appreciate it."

He's gone almost as soon as he says it, and Duen sinks into the couch cushions as he hears the bedroom door click shut, his head in his hands and his breath hitching around an unsteady sound. 

~~~***~~~

Two weeks of roses later, a baker's dozen of them in various states of wilting in a vase on their dining room table, and Ben corners Duen in the kitchen the second he gets home from school. He has his notebook that he's been writing down recipes in clutched in his hands and a determined look on his face. "Dad likes pad see eiw and chao kuai, and Grandma and Dao are picking Bee and I up at six to go see a movie." Duen frowns at him for a second, uncomprehending, and just about jumps out his skin when Ben releases the most put upon sigh and shoves the notebook against his chest. "Make him dinner! And dessert!"

It's a little disconcerting to have his twelve-year-old notice his efforts before his boyfriend, and definitely mortifying to find out that his mother has somehow been clued into them, too. But Duen isn't going to look even the most uncomfortable gift horse in the mouth. "Alright. I think he'll like it more if you help me though. We've both been pretty impressed with your cooking lately," he teases, pleased when Ben flushes and agrees.

They work pretty well together by now. Ben really only needs occasional supervision, and even then mostly just when he's trying something new. Duen divvies up the preparation between the two of them based on what he knows Ben is already adept at, and for everything he isn't Duen doesn't hesitate to show him. The recipes for tonight's dishes are copied from a borrowed library book, and Duen drags out his own well worn tome to compare them. Ben pours over the differences, always eager to ask questions about notes Duen has left in the margins or terms he's unfamiliar with. 

By the time Bohn and Bee come back from the park both he and Ben are a little messy and a lot giggly. Ben has brown sugar in his hair, though neither of them are quite sure how that came about, and Duen herds him off to take a quick shower before taking a half-asleep Bee from Bohn’s arms. "My mom is coming to take the kids and Daonua to see a movie in a half hour. I was hoping you might want to have dinner with me?"

He tries not to let it show on his face how much it hurts to see Bohn hesitate, really, he does. But he's never been the best at hiding how he feels, and he can tell Bohn knows anyways. "Bee's been kinda tired all day," Bohn says. "I'm worried, so I don't think . . ."

Duen shifts her against his shoulder to press a palm to her forehead. "She’s not running a fever. She's probably just a little sleepy." He holds out the same hand to Bohn, waiting, patient, until it's tentatively taken. "Have dinner with me, phi. Please?" It's playing dirty to use the honorific, but Duen doesn't feel bad about it when Bohn’s nervous expression starts to hedge towards something a little more familiar, a tad more fond.

"Alright."

Even when they first started dating, Bohn had never been big on dining out. The second he'd discovered that Duen could cook, and did it _well_ , that was it. Once, Duen suspects, the majority of Bohn’s meals had consisted of food cooked by strangers. He's always acted as if everything Duen makes specifically for him is a treat, and even when they're faltering, drowning as they are now, he still does. His exclamations over the fare are quieter though, his expressions less . . . Well, Duen supposes, the best way to describe them is that they're altogether less expressive. It makes something nearly feral thrash in his gut, his chest, rattling at the bars of his ribs that keep it contained. Bohn has always been an open book to him, his cocky smiles, arched eyebrows, the blatant affection in his eyes easy to read. 

But now, even as he softly lathers on genuine praise for Duen and Ben's cooking efforts, there's an unmistakable hollowness to both his tone and his gaze. His smiles are too pasted on, even though they're straining towards something real at the edges. It's like Bohn is reaching, trying his damnedest, but somehow floundering. 

And Duen doesn't know how much further he needs to reach out in order to catch him. Everything he's done so far has only left Bohn slipping through his fingers more, each attempt at affirming his own feelings somehow peeling back another layer to the now painfully evident fact that Bohn is _hurting_. 

Duen wonders, his heart in his throat, if this is just something drawn up from that awful, unforgivable thing he'd said, months ago now, or if it's been building for awhile. How long has this gap between them been festering? Was there anything he could have even done to stop it? To change a perhaps unchangeable tide? Once, years ago now, he'd confessed his love on the wake of uncertainty in himself. One day, he'd been sure, Bohn would find someone better, brighter, smarter and more talented. One day, Bohn would get bored of him. 

Perhaps he was a fool to get so lulled into such certainty, to let years of devotion make him dream of lifetimes. But when Bohn pushes his half-eaten chao kuai away, the corners of his eyes crinkled in something legitimate, aching, and says, "Thanks. You still have brown sugar smudged on your cheek though, my cutest little dumb," Duen can't help but continue to grasp for what's not yet lost. 

He can fix this. _He can fix this_. 

The tears come mostly unbidden, and Duen wipes them away quickly with the back of a hand. Bohn doesn't need to see him cry.

He must anyways though, the motion of trying to hide it too obvious to be as unnoticed as Duen wishes it was, and he winces as he hears Bohn's chair scoot back from the table. This time the hand in his hair is a little more firm, steadier despite the way Duen can feel Bohn’s fingers shaking. There's a cautious surety to the touch, and Duen leans into it with a helplessly audible hitch of his breath. "I don't know what's wrong with me," Bohn says, the admission distant. Duen glances up at him from where he's seated, startled by how glassy Bohn’s eyes on him are. "But you've been trying so hard, and I . . . I don't know what to do with it." He sits down heavily against the edge of the table, his hands falling back to his sides. "I don't think I . . ."

The way he draws off, clams up around whatever uncertain thing is trapped inside him, makes Duen reach for him. He winds his arms around Bohn’s waist, pulls himself to him to bury his face against his stomach, choking on a noise that comes out far too tellingly wounded. And out of a thousand things he wants to say, somehow what comes out of him, hoarse and utterly terrified, is, "Do you still love me?"

Bohn’s hands are in his hair again, carding back through his bangs and over the top of his head. There's still a note of security in the motion, and Bohn's whispered reply, when it comes, is exceptionally fierce. "Of course I do. _Of course_ _I love you_."

Something still lingers in the air though, a palpable and unspoken " _but_ " that neither of them dare to give voice to. 

It's almost too much for Duen to try and parse out all at once. He's too weak with relief to start picking apart the other things Bohn said, his attention focused on the words that have given him back some gravity to cling to. Bohn still loves him. They are not yet beyond saving. 

Staying like that for awhile is easy, soothing. Bohn shifts around just enough for Duen to pillow his head in his lap properly, his hands in his hair taking up a gentle rhythm of back and forth that has Duen purring on stable, if quiet, contentment. He's not sure exactly how much time passes, but eventually he looks up to see Bohn staring off towards some unseen point behind him. The motion of his hands through Duen’s hair doesn't stutter, but his unfocused eyes don't meet his for a long moment. Duen watches them flicker for a bit once they do, the flip from distance to proximity drawn out of Bohn on a catching inhale, like he's taking a moment to ground himself, drag his mind out of a mire of his own thoughts. His fingers curl down a little, link together at the back of Duen’s neck, his thumbs stroking over his cheeks. "Hey."

"Hi," Duen breathes. He sits up a little, just enough that Bohn’s knees bracket around his ribs and he can rest his elbows on the table on either side of his partner's hips. His nostrils flare just a little when Bohn leans down, tilts his chin up, and his heart thrums in his chest like he's nineteen and falling head over heels all over again. Bohn's breath ghosts over his lips, tentative in its candor, but Duen doesn't miss the vivid shine of sudden ardor in his eyes. Duen feels like maybe he should move first, meet Bohn halfway and then some, but he stays where he is, his hands bunching up Bohn’s shirt at his waist. He's been standing on half burned bridges for weeks now, waiting to be touched just like this, leaned into first, and he needs Bohn to come to him. Every atom of his body aches for it, trembles with hunger pangs for what he's sorely missed. 

The last step has to be Bohn’s.

Which, of course, means the universe finds the least opportune moments to send everything crashing down around them all over again. He feels Bohn tense up seconds before he hears the sound, agony coursing through him as his boyfriend abruptly stills and lets go of him, his eyes so instantly wide and wild that Duen knows exactly what he's going to say while the single syllable is still forming on his tongue. " _Bee_."

And there it is, over the echo of a car door slamming, the world-upending noise of Bee sobbing. It's quieter than usual, muffled, and Bohn is off the table and in the foyer before Duen can even stand, skidding over the hardwood to wrench the front door open and practically fly across the lawn. By the time Duen manages to catch up with him Bohn’s already scooping Bee out of her brother's arms while Ben hastily tries to explain what happened. 

"She was fine during dinner, and ice cream, but when we got to the movie she puked rainbow sherbert all over grandma!"

Duen notes his mom sitting in the car in the driveway and touches Bohn’s back as he passes him to see her off. He's not too keen on sitting through a well meaning but ultimately annoying lecture on parental responsibility or whatever when he has more important things to deal with. By the time he manages to assure her that they can handle it, and apologizes for an evening ruined by technicolor upchuck, Bohn is pacing their bedroom with Bee, his phone tucked against the other shoulder. 

"38.8," he says quickly into the receiver, and Duen's stomach drops. Fuck, that's way too hot. "Yeah, we can meet you there."

He must be talking to Thara, and Duen steps back to start packing some overnight bags for both them and Bee, only to freeze as Bee whimpers, "I don't feel very happy," where she's clinging to Bohn’s neck, and then promptly throws up all over him. 

Bohn yelps, juggling his phone out of the way and onto the bed, and Duen obligingly holds out his hands to take their now thoroughly wailing toddler. It adds an extra fifteen minutes to their already frantic dash to get to the hospital, and Duen apologizes profusely to Ben while a freshly clothed and distressingly listless and weepy Bee sniffles into his chest. 

"Frong will be here in a half hour, tops, to stay with you for the night. You know where the emergency money is right? And you can call us if you need anything." 

Ben nods along with everything he says, but Duen can see the anxiety in his eyes regardless. "Is she gonna be okay?"

"It's probably another ear infection. She'll be fine," Duen assures. Still, a third one in less than four months isn't good, and Ben isn't stupid. "If she needs to be there any longer than one night, we'll come get you. Alright?"

Not wanting to stress Bee out more than necessary, Bohn drives so that Duen doesn't have to put her down. Which Duen regrets pretty much the second they get in the car because Bohn treats every vehicle like he's gunning it around the Chang International Circuit. They get to the hospital in record time though, even if the exit from the car's backseat has Duen’s legs shaking. 

Bee has to be put on an IV again, unable to keep any fluids down with how upset her stomach is. Bohn is silent for most of the examination. He only answers the required questions Thara asks to get them set up for the night, and by the time they have Bee settled in for bed his gaze is so empty, so lost, that Duen doesn't know what to say to him. Bohn had been worried about leaving her tonight, and he had still insisted on it. Duen’s stomach winds into knots as that sinks in, the dull knowledge that he'd been stupid enough to dismiss Bohn’s concerns after everything else. And now Bee is right back where she was just a couple of months ago.

He knows it's not his fault. _He knows that_. But seeing Bohn consoling her with quiet murmurs, quieter purrs forced out with nothing but desperate instinct while she buries her face in the front of his shirt, the IV line hanging carefully across one of his arms, Duen doesn't know how he could possibly feel like it's not. 

He should have listened. Isn't he supposed to be a doctor? Isn't he supposed to be an alpha? A partner? A father? _Why didn't he just fucking listen?_

Everything feels dull, far away, muted across the expanse of a windswept sea. 

His best laid plans have gone to waste, and in his folly Duen chokes on an agonized note of his own making. How can he expect Bohn to love him when he's been _so fucking stupid_? 

"I'm going to pick up a heat suppressant while we're here," Bohn says softly from the bed. Bee has nodded off in his arms, her hands still clutched in the front of his shirt, and he doesn't look at Duen when he speaks.

That's right, Duen supposes it is almost that time again. And while he knows it's the best thing for them to do for Bee, it feels like a final nail, six feet of earth, and he swallows down another sound that will give away just how much it hurts. "Alright. I guess I'll take one too, then."

~~~***~~~

The thing about cycle suppressants is that they're really only for emergencies. And they don't suppress everything. They make a person functional, for the most part. The constant buzz of need is gone, as are the pheromones, but there's still a few painful hours of desire where their peaks would normally be, and Duen is a little bitter that Bohn’s body seems to make that aspect much easier to deal with between the two of them. He just takes a really long, cold shower, and then he's fine, out in the yard with Bee trimming the rose bush like he and Duen normally wouldn't be fucking each other's brains out right now. 

Frustrated and aching, Duen however spends six hours locked away in their bedroom wishing he hadn't thrown his rut mount away when he was nineteen. He makes due with a couple of pillows though (Bohn’s, of course, and he resolves to just give him his own as a replacement until he can buy new ones tomorrow). It's, to put it lightly, deeply unsatisfying and massively uncomfortable. He gets no pleasure out of knotting a stack of pillows, scrabbling and biting at cold sheets during orgasms that are still too long and intense despite the suppressants. They leave him shuddering on desolate growls he really, really hopes Bohn doesn't hear. It sucks. It sucks, _it sucks_ , **_it sucks_**. But he's loathe to let Bohn know that, not when they've both agreed it's necessary, that it's for the best. 

Still, once it's over he changes the sheets (intent on burning the other set), and shuts the door to the master bath behind himself to soak away the pain of sore muscles wound too tight and too tense, and a thoroughly chafed dick. He tells himself he's not sulking, but he stays in the tub until the water cools, drains it, then fills it up again so the bathroom is once more clouded with steam. 

It's midnight by the time he crawls into bed, careful not to disturb where Bohn is curled into a ball around his pilfered pillows and a few of Duen’s shirts stolen from the hamper, apparently not all of his nesting instincts having been snuffed out by the medication. The sight bubbles something fond in him, a mixture of relief and affection that's becoming too familiar these days, soothed for now by the knowledge that somewhere at his core Bohn is still displaying signs that he loves him. 

He doesn't sleep well that night, or for awhile after. His brain keeps him awake and mulling over everything. In particular, he can't help but keep turning one thing Bohn said over and over in his mind. 

_"You've been trying so hard, and I don't know what to do with it."_

Something about that wording specifically sticks in his head, a constant undercurrent to the drumbeat of their lives continuing around them. The world doesn't stop just because their relationship is stalled at a crossroads, and Duen picks at that deliberate, unsteady phrasing with careful consideration whenever he has the time. 

He thinks of it especially when Bohn makes obvious effort. He still isn’t really initiating anything, but he is reciprocating more. Even if the way he leans into Duen’s touches is hesitant, and his purrs significantly more muted than they once were, Duen can’t dismiss that he’s trying. But what he’d confessed to earlier still stands; whatever affection he’s given, Bohn fumbles to react to. He’s painfully quiet most of the time they’re alone, physically withdrawn, and while he never actively shies back, the way he looks at him, confused and the tiniest bit lost when Duen nuzzles at his neck, his shoulder, ever desperate to keep their scents as a mixed together whole, is almost worse. 

However, the way Bohn behaves around the kids, Bee especially, is a startling contrast. He’s good at pasting on bright smiles, easy laughs, and his adoration for them never falters. If anything, it only seems to increase. He scents them almost daily (much to Ben’s dismay, as he complains that being thirteen and going to school smelling that much like your parents is embarrassing), and he’s still amazingly attentive with Bee, even to the point of stealing an entire stack of Duen’s medical textbooks.

“There’s not a lot you can do to prevent them,” Duen quietly reminds after he finds him pouring over one of the tomes. 

“I can fucking try,” Bohn mutters, and that’s probably the closest they’ve come to having a fight in ages.

And then they have an actual fight.

Over _jello_.

Bee has the sniffles again, but they’re managing it well. She’s understandably nonplussed with the saline drops Bohn has taken up giving her to help with congestion, and is at least a little enamored with the light up, color changing humidifier they’ve set up in her room. Still, three straight days of even a mild cold for a two year old are miserable, and while Bohn is attending Ben’s science fair, Duen does the one thing he’s consistently good at that he knows Bee will like. 

He makes gelatin. Having long ago graduated from the boxed mixes to his own concoctions, Duen spends the afternoon letting Bee pick out the fruit juices she wants, and then which actual fruits to add into it. He gets her one of the little plastic knives from her kiddie kitchenette playset and sets her up in her booster seat at the table while he works, letting her mash bananas into oblivion while he dices up fruit he can actually use. Bananas are fine for pudding, but they turn to goop inside jello.

Two batches down and a third under way, he starts carefully cutting the finished pans into shapes using cookie cutters, serving the blue and green stars and cubes up on a plate for her. Bee is, of course, delighted, and Duen takes the mutilated bananas in exchange. “Kiwis?” she asks, pulling one of the green cubes apart to get access to the berry inside it. 

“This one is kiwis with strawberries,” Duen confirms. “And the blue one is raspberry with more raspberries. There’s also another in the fridge for later that’s mango with peaches.” 

Unsurprisingly the blue raspberry one gets the most attention, probably something about the nearly bioluminescent color, but what matters to Duen is that Bee eats enough of it all to make up for how picky she’d been with both breakfast that morning and dinner the night before. So he’s pretty pleased with himself. Or at least he is until Bohn comes home and sees the jello in the fridge and all over their two-year-old’s face. 

“Isn’t that stuff full of sugar?” Bohn asks, and Duen pauses where he’s dabbing a wet wipe over Bee’s blue-tinted mouth.

“I guess?” he hedges, a little put off by the scathing look Bohn is giving the bowls of gelatin shapes in the refrigerator. “I mean, fruit is mostly sugar, and I make them out of fruit juices and actual fruit, so-”

Bohn closes the fridge door and levels him with a glare. “So it’s sugar. You’re basically feeding her wiggly blocks of sugar.”

Duen can practically taste the tension boiling in the air, but somehow that doesn’t manage to shut him up in time. “She _likes it_ ,” he counters. “And she’s barely been eating as it is. So yeah, it’s sugar. But I don’t really see the point in making a fuss over that when we should just be lucky she’s eating something.” He turns back to cleaning Bee’s face, mulling over the eight billion other things he could have said that would have been a much better argument. Like the fact that fruit is full of vitamins, and his homemade jello has much less sugar than the boxed stuff they were using before. 

Really, he shouldn’t be surprised when his mediocre counterpoints bite him in the ass, especially not when Bohn snaps out a much harsher than expected, “You know, for someone who’s so good at cooking, you sure make a lot of garbage for our sick kid.”

Duen freezes, more shocked than he is actually hurt, and twists in his seat to take in the way Bohn is glaring at him. His shoulders are up, the entire line of his back tense, and his fists clenching at his sides. This is . . . Not about jello, Duen thinks distantly. “Bohn . . .”

“How is she supposed to get better if you’re basically just feeding her solid sugar?” Bohn spits. His lip is curled, his nostrils flaring with every word, and Duen shifts to quietly start taking Bee out of her booster seat. “Are you even _trying_? You could make her soup, I’m sure you of all people could figure out something she’d like that isn’t just fucking jello.”

Standing, Duen hefts Bee into his arms, ignoring both her confused noise and Bohn’s insults. “Let’s go find your brother, bumble-Bee,” he whispers.

“Duen!”

“Bohn,” Duen returns without hesitation. “Can you save it for five minutes?”

That seems to shake Bohn out of it, and Duen watches with rising dismay as his entire expression shifts in an instant, unbridled rage quickly falling into agonized horror. He leaves him there, making his way down the hall to deposit Bee in Ben’s room with their eldest before he closes the door behind him to face the real problem. Bohn is standing exactly where he left him when he returns to the kitchen, but when Duen tries to step into his space he takes two paces back.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out hoarsely, his hands held up between them almost like a shield. “That was . . . I didn’t mean that.”

He did, Duen thinks. But that’s fine. “I’m not mad,” Duen murmurs. He tries for reassuring, but it comes out just a little too unsteady to hit that mark. Really, he isn’t mad. But to say he isn’t alarmed would be lying. “Bohn,” he says, and this time when he attempts to touch him Bohn lets him, sagging as soon as Duen’s hands find his shoulders. “I’m really worried about you.”

For some reason that makes Bohn frown, his mouth tightening into a thin line. “Me? I’m not-” Duen thinks he was aiming for a sigh, but it sounds distinctly like a growl. The frustration is in the air again, thick as it reaffirms itself back into Bohn’s posture. “I’m fine. _Bee_ is the one you should be worrying about. Fuck, Duen, didn’t we already have this discussion? Can you just . . . Put some effort into that, instead? I feel like I’m running around in circles trying to keep her from getting sick again, constantly washing my hands and buying all that crap to make sure she doesn’t get too stuffed up, and you’re _making jello_.”

It’s the people you love the most that know all the best ways to push your buttons and make you feel like an asshole. Duen knows that, but it really doesn’t make Bohn’s words sting any less. He also knows that Bohn is stressed, anxious, and that three ear infections in as many months isn’t doing either of them any favors. Honestly, he expected them to end up fighting about it a lot sooner. “You’re right,” he says, “maybe I could be doing more. But I’m just as lost in all this as you are. Why don’t you tell me what you want me to help with, what you think I should be doing for Bee.” 

He’s already wracking his mind for soup recipes and other easy, home methods they can use to try and stave off any future colds. Before he can even think to suggest anything himself though, Bohn pushes away from him, face twisting up with something so viscerally, deeply upset that Duen doesn’t know how to react. Fuck. What the hell? “I’m going to bed,” Bohn manages to get out, every word strained, the breath he takes at the end hitching harshly. 

“It’s four in the afternoon?” Duen calls after him, but Bohn is already halfway across the house, slamming the door to their bedroom. 

True to his word, he doesn’t emerge again for the rest of the evening, and Duen resigns himself to allowing him to sulk, or whatever the hell he’s doing. He lets Bee eat jello for dinner, too, because fuck it, though he does spend an hour helping Ben perfect a new curry recipe. It’s after ten by the time he gets the kids squared away and the kitchen cleaned, and when he tries the bedroom door he mentally prepares himself for it to be locked, so he’s mildly caught off guard when it isn’t.

Bohn is laying on his stomach in the middle of the mattress, the comforter pooled over top of him in such a way that Duen knows he has the edges tucked under his body. The pillows are still at the head of the bed, but the disarray of them reveals that at the very least Bohn had started out there. He’s not asleep, Duen can tell by the cadence with which he breathes and the sharp, immediate spike of fear that he smells the second he closes the door behind him. Shit. “I can leave,” he whispers, only slightly relieved when Bohn visibly shakes his head beneath the blanket. Alright, baby steps then. “Can I sit with you?”

Bohn nods, and Duen slowly makes his way across the room to climb up onto the bed beside him. He startles a little when Bohn’s hands find his waist the second he’s seated, holding his breath as his boyfriend crawls over to him and all but collapses in his lap. Duen can’t see his face, the comforter still shielding Bohn from both him and the rest of the world, but he can feel the hot drip of tears on the thigh of his pants, is keenly aware of the fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt shaking, and Bohn slumps against him when he reaches out to run a tentative hand over the trembling line of his back. 

Neither of them offer any more apologies, or explanations, not when they’ll just fall flat. But Duen has a sinking feeling now, an inkling of a thought of what he’s dealing with, and he pushes it down to stay in the moment, tracing quiet shapes over Bohn’s body through the blanket in the dark, heartbroken by every obvious, shuddering sob he hears. 

It’s the fourth ear infection that finally breaks the dam. Altogether it’s her most minor one so far, a barely-there fever and a quick trip to the pharmacy to pick up a refill for the same medications they’ve been using all year. Still, after how hard Bohn has been trying to keep it from happening again, Duen’s not surprised that it ends up being too much.

He realizes what’s wrong when he finds Bohn washing his hands so aggressively they’re red and raw, and he’s not fast enough to pull him away from the steaming, clearly too hot water before he scalds himself. Bohn hisses, withdrawing from the stream with a flinch just as Duen grabs at his elbows, his glazed eyes shifting to surprise in an instant. 

Duen stares at him, shock giving way to deep, agonized dismay as it finally sinks in what he’s dealing with. 

The lack of steady appetite, the sleepless nights, the severe withdrawing from what had once been a healthy, physically affectionate relationship, and now this. He knows what this is.

He skims his touch down to Bohn’s hands, turning them lightly in his grip until he can see that his palms are cracked, already blistered and bleeding in places. A different kind of guilt settles into Duen’s bones as he sees them, heavy with the knowledge that he might have figured it out sooner if this last clue hadn’t been done so casually. He knew Bohn had been overwashing his hands for awhile, but not to this extent. 

Self harm presents differently in everyone.

“Oh, Bohn,” he whispers, infinitely devastated in an instant. “I’m so sorry. God damn it, _I’m so fucking sorry_.”

It’s not that Bohn doesn’t love him anymore, or that his affection has waned, it’s just that what’s wrong has manifested most prominently between them because that’s where Bohn clearly feels the safest in displaying it. His weaknesses have always been more apparent to Duen than anyone else, and this isn’t any different. The divide that’s spread like a chasm between them isn’t mental, it’s _chemical_.

It’s not uncommon for the anxiety and stress of taking care of a young child with chronic or recurring illness to develop into depression. It’s an easier pitfall for omegas especially, and with Bohn’s history it’s no wonder it had snuck up on them so suddenly. Now, with how Bohn is looking at him, distantly confused as to why Duen is holding onto him with shaking arms, it’s clear he has no idea. God, Duen thought something was wrong with them, that they'd fucked up somewhere, fumbled something, and gotten lost. But that's not it at all. No wonder he couldn't fix it with flowers and romantic dinners. Bohn is _sick_.

“Phi,” Duen murmurs, pulling him closer, close enough to bury his face in the crook of Bohn’s neck and rub his cheek over his skin. His scent is lower too, he notes now, almost dulled. “Phi, let’s go to the clinic. Please?”

Bohn tenses up in his grip immediately, fingers curling into where they’ve found purchase in the fabric of Duen’s shirt at his sides. “Why? Is something wrong with Bee? Did her fever get worse? I thought she was napping, what-”

“Bee’s fine,” Duen assures as quickly as he can. “She’s fine. I . . . Bohn . . . It’s you. I want to take you there. Is that okay? We’ll go together.” Silence rings out in the wake of his plea, and Duen waits, tracing shapes up and down Bohn’s back. He can’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want, he can only ask. 

“You think I need help,” Bohn says quietly after a few minutes, and it’s far more of a statement than a question. Duen nods, his throat clogging around any verbal reply he could give. And then, even softer, and much more broken than Duen can bear, Bohn whispers, breath hitching, “ _I think I need help_.”

~~~***~~~

Unfortunately, four ear infections in less than a year is enough to facilitate a more permanent solution. Thara gives Duen permission to bring it up, lets him have time to compile all the information he needs to make the news as easy on Bohn as possible. It’s not well timed, but they also can’t afford to wait until Bohn’s adjusted to his prescription better. Duen has Thara schedule the procedure for the following Friday, and spends two days carefully combing through every article and firsthand account forum post he can find before he takes all his research to Bohn.

“A surgery,” Bohn says hoarsely where they’re sitting across from each other in the center of their bed. He’s still not sleeping well, and there are visible circles under his eyes, but his attention is already a little more there, and when Duen reaches across the space between them he takes the offered hand readily and without hesitation. “And this is . . . This is the best thing for her?”

“I know how it sounds,” Duen assures. “But yes, it is. And it’s not even really an invasive surgery either. Here.” He offers Bohn the diagrams he’s printed out and waits for a minute while Bohn studies them before he moves to sit next to him. “With a myringotomy they’ll just cut a little incision in the eardrum.” The paper rustles a little when he sets his finger on the spot. “They’ll put the tympanostomy tube in right there, one on each side of her head, to keep the middle ear aerated. The tubes are really small, and made of a safe and sturdy plastic. She won’t even notice them. And the best part is that she probably won’t even need them taken back out, because most of the time they’ll fall out on their own in six to nine months.”

Bohn nods along with everything he’s saying, but the motion is stiff, his shoulders hunched, and when he next speaks Duen can hear how much he’s struggling. “Will she have to be put under?”

“With anesthesia? Yes. To be specific they’ll use general anesthesia, so she’ll be asleep for the whole thing, which usually takes less than a half hour. And because the procedure is so minor she’ll probably even be able to come home that evening.” 

Bohn is quiet while he flips through the information, his eyes scanning everything from diagrams to positive facebook posts from parents with kids who have had the surgery. It’s all pretty open and shut as far as Duen is concerned, but he knows that for Bohn it’s a lot, and he’s not too surprised when his boyfriend eventually sets everything aside and buries his head in his hands. The dam broke awhile ago, but the flood didn’t follow to the extent Duen had initially thought it might. To have it do so now isn’t shocking, but it’s still more than a little heartbreaking to hear Bohn choke on a heavy, “This is _my fault_.”

“Bohn-”

He shakes his head, twisting away from him when Duen tries to take his hand again. “I didn’t tell you,” Bohn sobs. “But it is. It _is_ my fault. That first day of the heat, when we dropped the kids off with Boss, I thought Bee felt a little warm and I- _I ignored it_. She usually runs a bit hot while she’s sleeping, and she’d napped in the car the whole way there, but I . . . I wondered, for half a second, if she was catching a cold and then _left her there anyways_.”

“Bohn,” Duen tries again, stricken. No wonder. _Fuck_ , no wonder he’d slipped so easily, so quickly, into this. He’s been beating himself up inside, agonizing over a tiny mistake. Bee would have gotten sick whether they’d been with her or not, but Bohn doesn’t, and might never see it that way. He’s so fiercely protective over his kids, viscerally, instinctually, and Duen knows first hand how Bohn lashes out at anything that threatens them. So it makes sense, then, that when he thought the fault was his own that he’d tear himself apart over it. “Phi, sometimes kids just get sick.”

It’s a really shit consolation, Duen acknowledges, but he doesn’t know what else to say. He’s not sure there’s anything he can offer right now that will convince Bohn otherwise, not while he’s still sick himself. Whatever reassurances he can give will just get mired down in Bohn’s mind, stuck beneath every horrible thing he’s probably currently telling himself. Still, though, “It’s not your fault.” He reaches out, tentative fingers brushing over the back of Bohn’s neck, only to startle as Bohn flinches away from the touch.

It’s the first time he’s done that, and Duen stills in the wake of it, his heart in his throat. “It is my fault!” Bohn hiccups. “I was supposed to do better this time! And I still . . . _Fuck_. Duen, I- I even . . . I’m so _sorry_ . . .”

Bohn has a bad habit of apologizing for things that don’t need amending, but this time even Duen is at a loss for what he’s trying to say. Every word is staggered around unsteady sounds, is wet with tears, and when Duen tries to touch him again Bohn curls further into himself. “It’s my fault,” he weeps, every centimeter of his body trembling with each gasping breath he takes, “And I _yelled at you_. I acted like you were being heartless, and stupid, but I was _terrified_ , and I- I _knew_ what I’d done. I let her get sick. I let our baby get sick. You were only trying to help, and I still-”

Right. Okay. That’s enough of that. 

Duen takes Bohn’s wrists in his hands, pulls them away from his face, his voice firm. “Stop. Look at me, phi. Tell me the truth. Did you think I’d stop loving you if I found out? That if I thought you let Bee get sick, which you didn’t, that I’d leave you?”

The fact that Bohn just stares at him, clearly caught in the dead center of the cycle of self loathing he’s trapped himself in, makes him nauseous. It hits him then, that maybe it’s not just Bohn who’s been putting too much pressure on himself, but the world as a whole, him included. He’s always considered Bohn to be the better parent out of the two of them, calmer, more experienced. He’s been so good with Bee since the moment she was born, a steady presence to lean on while Duen had felt like he was floundering. It’s a really good thing they aren’t married yet, Duen thinks bitterly, because it turns out he’s been doing a piss poor job of being supportive in the ‘for better or for worse’ department. 

“Do you remember,” he says slowly, “how a few days after Bee was born you told me it was okay to make mistakes? I thought you were so perfect that day, the best, my absolute better half. I felt like such an idiot in comparison, but it turns out that we’re actually both _fucking stupid_.”

Yep, that does it. Bohn’s expression shifts from nearly inconsolable grief to startled, palpable anger. “You’re not stupid,” he snaps. Duen bites the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. “Duen, what _the fuck_? Don’t say that!”

“But it’s okay for you to say it?” Duen asks softly. He still has Bohn’s wrists in his hands, and he adjusts his grip until he can trace his thumbs over the back of his knuckles instead. “Because if we’re going to call ourselves dumbasses and air out our parental fuckups, you should know that I once let Bee roll off the bed while you were out having coffee with your friends. She was like, uh, five months old? Maybe six? Right off the side of mattress and onto the floor.”

“What!?”

“And,” Duen continues, ignoring him, “when we first started dating I was trying to win Ben over and I let him eat so much candy at the mall that he threw up, and we pinky-swore never to tell you.”

That one is met with dead silence for a second, and then, a little rueful, Bohn whispers, “Wait. The time you picked him and Daonua up from school and he went straight to bed when you guys got back?”

“Yup. Also I messed up cutting Bee’s toenails when she was a newborn and hid it from you by making sure she was always wearing those cute dinosaur socks you liked so you wouldn’t see that I actually cut our kid with a nail clipper badly enough to need a bandaid.”

Bohn stares at him. “A bandaid.”

“Yes.”

“From a _nail clipper_?”

“I’m not sure why you’re surprised. It’s like you’ve never met me,” Duen sighs. “Look, what I’m trying to say is that it’s fine. Even if . . . Even if it was your fault that Bee got sick, which, again, it’s _not_ , she’s going to be alright. So how is that any worse of a mistake than all the things I’ve done? I mean, I thought for sure I’d concussed her after she rolled off the bed, but she was perfectly fine.”

“I’m starting to get more and more mad that you didn’t tell me about that,” Bohn mutters. 

Duen grins. “Good.” He squeezes Bohn’s hands in his, taking a deep breath and letting it settle his racing heart. “Cause I want to try something new, okay? We’ve gotten pretty good at not lying to each other, but it turns out we’re doing a really bad job at not keeping secrets. So let’s do this once a week from now on. We should just sit down for a few minutes, maybe a half hour, and make sure to tell each other about anything that’s bothering us.”

“I wish you’d stop buying so many fucking bananas,” Bohn blurts out suddenly. “Let’s start with that. Bee will never get over her god damn banana phase if you keep humoring her with them. I was reading those textbooks of yours, mister doctor, and did you know a person can _die_ from getting too much potassium? Guess what bananas are full of.”

“Oh my god?” Duen snickers. “ _That’s_ what you want to start with? Not something more serious?”

Bohn huffs, squeezing his hands back. His tears have dried up now, Duen notes, delighted despite the annoyed frown that’s replaced them. “I can get serious. How about this? You really hurt my feelings when you stopped making love to me.”

Oh.

That’s the first time Bohn’s called it that. Ever. And the fact that he’s chosen to do so for this is entirely intentional. “I didn’t know if I should,” Duen confesses. “I felt like, since I was always the one initiating it, that you didn’t want it. And I didn’t like the idea of you doing it just to satisfy me.”

Bohn considers this with a wordless narrowing of his eyes, a slight tilt of his head. “Fair,” he decides. “And I guess you’re not wrong. I thought . . . _think_ ,” he corrects, a morose note to his tone that makes Duen’s heart clench. “I didn’t think I deserved to feel good,” he whispers. “But I wanted you to. And I liked being with you anyways. I always do. And then when you stopped, I wondered if maybe you didn’t want me anymore.”

In hindsight, Duen thinks dizzily, maybe they should have spaced these admissions out a bit. This is a lot, and it _hurts_. But it finally feels like they’re getting somewhere, every small confession more weight eased off of months and months of agony. “I thought you got bored of me,” he hears himself say, wincing at how much it echoes a much, much older fear. 

“Never,” Bohn replies, barely a moment to breathe left between what Duen has said and his own vehement denial. “ _Never_.”

It’s been awhile, Duen realizes when Bohn moves to embrace him, long enough that he’d lost count of the days once they’d stretched into weeks, then months. It’s easy to take it back though, such a relief as he sinks bodily into Bohn’s arms, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. He’s missed this more than he thought he had, and he buries his face in the crook of Bohn’s neck with a strangled sound of sheer relief. 

They’re going to be okay. And for the first time, Duen thinks that and knows for sure that it’s true.

~~~***~~~

Bohn is, totally unsurprisingly, a mess during the operation. He bursts into tears the second they wheel her away for the procedure, sobbing about her tiny hospital gown that Duen maybe shouldn’t have taken a picture of and called cute. All is well though, and Bee wakes up after it’s over and immediately demands ice cream and flowers for her troubles, ever Bohn’s daughter even while drugged up and cranky.

They skip another cycle, Bohn reluctantly admitting that the medication he’s on has totally tanked what little sex drive he had left. And it’s that that makes Duen decide to really start from square one again. Bohn might still be in love with him, but he figures it never hurts for him to prove that he’s really in this for better or for worse. Especially now that they’re actively and effectively recovering from the “worse.”

The first step, as always, is a simple rose. This time when he brings it home Bohn actually knows it’s for him. He plays coy about it though, a true testament to the fact that he’s starting to feel better. They dance around each other in the kitchen for a bit, Duen trying to hand it to him while Bohn feigns obliviousness, only giving in when he’s caught out smirking. “Very cute,” he praises once he finally takes it, twirling the stem between his fingers. “But can you get me twenty-nine more?”

Duen grins so widely he worries he might break his own face. 

He pours over flower meanings, consults both their kids and their friends, choosing each flower with extensive care and consideration. 

A chrysanthemum for loyalty. Freesia for passion. An entire bouquet of heather to show his admiration. He brings home sunflowers with whispered adorations, tulips to praise Bohn’s renewing confidence, and a pretty pink aster when he kisses murmured devotion over the shell of his boyfriend’s ear. The day after Bohn kisses him first, he gifts him red camellias, a confirmation of desire. When Bee’s third birthday falls during the middle of his flower giving, Duen spends the morning before the celebrations with her picking out a little arrangement of delicate orchids. He lets Bohn look that one up for himself, smirking when he notes him staring at his phone with pink cheeks later during the party, as flustered as Duen had hoped he would be upon finding out that in some countries, orchids stand for “ _want of many children_.”

As always though, it’s the roses that mean the most. Pink for appreciation, lavender for love at first sight, orange for fascination. Frong helps him choose one that’s red with inner bits of white, a gentle mixture symbolizing unity, and Ben triumphantly brings back a yellow and orange one he gets from god knows where, enthusiastic as he explains that he read that it means “falling in love,” and figures it works for the situation anyways. 

On the thirtieth day, he does the same thing he did the first time, and presents Bohn with an entire bush. The buds on it have not yet bloomed, still encased in green and just starting to sprout. “What color are they going to be?” Bohn asks while they plant it on the opposite side of the path from the other one. It’ll be a good match once it grows, two rose bushes to frame the entranceway to the house Duen intends to live in for the rest of his life. 

“Yellow.”

Bohn hums, brushing dirt from his hands, “Yellow for jealousy? Or . . .”

Duen snorts, shaking his head, and nudges his shoulder with a smile. “Yellow for ‘welcome back.’”

The first time they try to go out Duen is patient with how long Bohn hesitates over leaving Bee behind. She hasn’t been sick in months, but Duen isn’t stupid enough to dismiss Bohn’s unease. So when they’re ten minutes away, and Bohn demands they turn around and go back, he’s okay with trying another night. 

Two more failed attempts later, and they sit down for a nice dinner at home instead. Ben shows off his new knowledge of Thai desserts he’s been practicing with a friend from school, and they decide to nix the candles after Bee tries to stick her hand right into one. 

So he may or may not be a bit caught off guard when, just a couple of weeks after that, Bohn picks him up from work and drives him straight to a cute little bed and breakfast outside of town.

It’s gorgeous, the room Bohn hands him the keys for quaint but comfortable. And also littered with rose petals. They’re everywhere: the floor, the bed, and floating in the bath that’s already full and gently steaming. He’s distracted by the total, almost blinding array of them just enough that when Bohn comes up behind him and winds his arms around his waist, his chin settling into the dip between his neck and shoulder, he jumps.

A shiver licks up his spine as a kiss is pressed to the hinge of his jaw, Bohn’s fingers splaying across his stomach and skimming lower. “Hey,” he purrs against Duen’s neck.

“Hi,” Duen returns, practically holding his breath. Fuck, he _wants_. He waits though, balanced on a precipice. Whatever Bohn is ready for, he’s okay with. 

“Can I spend the night with you?” Bohn asks. It’s soft, still a little hesitant, but his touch is strikingly sure. He skims his hands further down, dipping his fingers below the waistband of Duen’s pants until it earns him an audible groan. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he hums, such a familiar teasing tone creeping back into his voice that Duen has to blink back a sudden, overwhelming wash of affection that threatens to make him cry. “I think you’re pretty cute,” Bohn continues. His front is pressed solidly along Duen’s back now, close enough that every jack-rabbit of his heart can be felt. “And considering that I already love you quite a lot, it would be really cool if you could fuck me ‘till I forget my own name.”

Ah. Yep. There he is.

Duen turns in his hold, taking Bohn’s face between his hands and looking him in the eye before he leans in to kiss him. “Promise me you’ll tell me if you want to stop, or if it doesn’t feel good for you,” he murmurs against his lips. 

Regardless of whatever filthy things Bohn says out loud, they’re both keenly aware that they need to take it slow. Duen tries very, very hard not to think about how long it’s been since they were together like this, and instead focuses on the sensations of relearning a body he knows better than his own. 

They start with a bath, letting warm water soothe away whatever tensions that threaten to get in the way. Bohn is cautiously loose in his embrace, framed in by Duen’s legs on either side of him as he relaxes back against his chest. “What do you want to start with?” Duen asks, dancing careful touches down Bohn’s ribs. He presses kisses along the line of his throat while he waits for an answer, listens to Bohn’s breath hitch, the stuttering first thrums of a purr vibrating under his fingers. His beautiful boy, perfectly imperfect, every steady, anticipating inhale treasured as Duen murmurs soft assurances over his neck. “Love you, phi. I want whatever you want.”

Bohn swallows, a faint shiver rippling up through him as Duen tentatively traces lower, thumbs gliding over the inside of thighs that are parting for him of their own accord. “F-fingers,” Bohn urges. “I want . . .”

Duen nibbles at the underside of his jaw, watching through half-lidded eyes as Bohn’s back arches when he presses a finger into the heat of him. He’s tight, moreso from nerves if the thundering of his heart is anything to go by, and Duen shifts to use his other hand, too. Bohn whimpers when he circles the pad of his thumb over that sensitive bundle of nerves, a gasp escaping him. He’s almost instantly looser, fluttering around Duen’s knuckle in warm wakes, and he slips the second finger in much easier. “There you go,” he praises. “Can you talk to me, phi? Let me know what feels good?”

Aiming for perfection might be setting himself up at too high a standard, but Duen wants this to be good for Bohn. It’s been so long, and after everything Bohn had confessed to, all the ways he’d convinced himself he wasn’t worthy of this kind of pleasure, Duen desperately needs to show him that he is. 

Bohn nods. “Y-yeah. Can you- _ah_!” It’s the best sound Duen’s heard in ages, that deliciously audible gasp that lets him know he’s doing something right. “ _Fuck_ , yeah. Just like that. Deeper- _hah!_ ”

Somehow it’s more exciting than he’d thought it would be, and the purr that rumbles up in his chest every time he makes Bohn pant, leaves him quaking, his nails digging into Duen’s knees beneath the water as higher and higher sounds spill from his mouth, only gets louder as he pushes him closer to the edge. He loves this, loves taking Bohn apart slowly and attentively, enamored with the hundred little sounds and sighs of pleasure he earns. Even with only his fingers he loves it, still inexplicably turned on despite the lack of stimulation for himself. Fuck, he's missed being able to touch Bohn like this. 

"Three," Bohn whines, and Duen delights in how he rolls his hips down onto his fingers, starts to chase his own ecstasy for the first time. "I can take three. _Fuck_ , baby, _please_."

Duen bites a little harder at the soft space at the back of Bohn’s neck on the heels of that, growling as he can't stop himself from grinding against his ass. _Baby_. He'd called him _baby_ again. He gets that third finger in, murmuring admirations along Bohn’s throat as he works them in and out, hypnotized with every clench around his knuckles, the pitching pants he can taste where he leaves kisses over skin. Bohn is close, he realizes, heat coiling in his own gut as he recognizes all the best signs of it. The gasped out iterations of his name are, as always, the most delicious one, but he drinks in all the others, too. Bohn’s head is tilted back on his shoulder now, his back arching with every time he rolls down on Duen’s hand, and his grip on his legs has left crescent nail bites with every flex of his fingers.

“ _Duen_ ,” he whimpers, and Duen can _hear_ it, every note of Bohn’s pleasure ringing in his ears with such familiarity that he _aches_. “Fuck, I- I’m gonna come, fuck, _fuck_ -” His thighs tense beneath the water, and Duen can’t stop himself from growling as he watches the orgasm ripple up through his partner, mesmerized with every breathless second of it from the way Bohn’s toes curl to the high, mewling noise he makes, his eyes squeezed shut and his adam’s apple bobbing around each staggered breath he heaves in. The heat of him bears down on Duen’s fingers over and over, the clench of his walls around his knuckles almost desperate as if trying to find a fullness that hasn’t yet been quite fulfilled, and that has Duen so hard he’s nearly dizzy. 

Bohn comes down from it slowly, still shaking with tiny aftershocks that have his thighs twitching, and when Duen pulls his fingers out he whines at the loss. “Holy shit,” he whispers, still a little breathless. “You haven’t lost your touch, babe.” Duen tries not to puff up about that too much, but still hides a snicker and a grin against Bohn’s shoulder that earns him a fond laugh in return. “You can be proud,” Bohn teases. “Damn, I would be too if I could make you come like that. Good god.” 

Duen hums, considering. “Do you want to?”

“Hmm? Do I wanna what?”

“Make me come like that.”

Bohn shifts, just the slightest bit unsteady as he turns to wrap his arms around Duen’s neck. “Uh, yeah? Tell me what you want. I’ll make you see _stars_.”

He laughs again when Duen gets his hands under his thighs, muffling mirth into Duen’s shoulder as he’s hoisted out of the water. And this, Duen realizes with a start, a warm bloom of affection unfurling in his chest, is what he missed the most. More than the proximity, or the affection, or the sex, he’s been longing for moments just like this, where they’re stumbling together, Bohn grinning at him beneath wet bangs with soft eyes that, even in their lightly nervous uncertainty, still shine with an eternal fondess that’s just for him. Bohn doesn’t let go while Duen towels him dry, purring deeply and ardently where he’s wound his arms around Duen’s neck. And when Duen presses insistent fingers to the back of his thighs again he doesn’t hesitate to jump, snickering when Duen staggers under his weight before he gets a good hold on him as his legs hook together around his waist.

“You know, I actually lost weight,” Bohn teases at his ear as Duen walks them back to the bed. “So this just means you’ve been slacking on the workouts.”

Duen’s tempted to just dump him on the mattress for that, imagining the way he’ll huff and laugh when he tackles him across the comforter. But that might be a little too much for right now, and he’s eager to make sure Bohn knows he has total control over this. So instead he turns to sit down on the bed himself, settling Bohn into his lap and pressing heated kisses up from his clavicles to the jut of his chin. 

Bohn squirms under the attention, rising tantalizingly up onto his knees to return it with a press of teeth to his earlobe when Duen kneads at his ass. “Tell me how you want me,” he pleads, rolling his body against him with a strangled gasp when the head of Duen’s cock teases against his center. “Fuck. Wait,” he shoves a flat palm at his chest until Duen glances up at him with half-lidded eyes, pulling his mouth away from where he’s been sucking a mark into his collarbone. “I’ll fall off the edge of the damn bed like this,” Bohn complains.

“Put me wherever you want me, phi,” Duen purrs.

The hunger that settles into Bohn’s gaze makes Duen’s breath hitch, the ember flare directed at him enough to make him tremble. Bohn’s hands skim down his chest before pushing him again, guiding him down until he’s flat on his back on the mattress. “Scoot up,” Bohn commands, crawling over him as Duen obligingly shifts further up the bed until his shoulders settle in the pillows beneath the headboard. “There we go. This okay?”

Duen’s hands find Bohn’s thighs again, drag him closer until Bohn bites on his lip as Duen’s length brushes against him. “I think I should be asking you that,” Duen reminds gently. “You’re not doing this just to please me, right?” The way Bohn arches into his touch, the needy whimper that escapes him, tells him he’s not, but Duen wants to hear it said verbally anyways. “Tell me how much you want me, phi,” he breathes.

Bohn braces his hands over his sternum, and his thighs shake under Duen’s fingers. “Can you pull your knees up?” he asks, already flushed and panting, and Duen isn’t even _inside him_ yet. He does as requested, entranced when Bohn leans back against the rise of his legs as he lines them up. “Perfect. _God_ , Duen, you’re so . . . You have no idea how bad I want this. Fuck, I need . . . I fucking _need_ you in me, I-” The sound he makes when he finally sinks down onto him is high, hitching with a palpable satisfaction that has Duen groaning far more than the tight, wet heat of his body. Fuck, it’s good, every tiny movement of Bohn around and over him making his vision swim, his hands clenching at his partner’s hips. Bohn all but collapses against him as soon as he’s fully seated, bowed across him with his fingers flexing on Duen’s chest, his head dropped down to rest against his shoulder. He’s breathing harshly, a little raggedly, legs squeezing at Duen’s sides. 

“You alright?” Duen murmurs, drawing his fingers soothingly up Bohn’s trembling back. 

“Fine,” Bohn nods quickly. “It’s just . . . It’s been awhile. _Fuck_ , I’m really . . . You’re big, you know that? I’m really fucking full. Apologies in advance, but I’m probably going to come pretty quick, so . . .” Duen feels his pupils dilate when Bohn manages to sit up again, his eyes following the path of the deliberate roll with which he does it. He must make some noise in response, because Bohn’s heady gaze snaps to meet his in an instant, fresh fire in the way he parts his lips and pulls them into a confident smirk. “Yeah? You like that? You wanna-” He raises up on his knees a bit, just enough to really tease, and rocks back down agonizingly slow. Duen’s grip on his hips nears bruising. “You wanna watch me, baby? You want to see me fuck myself like this on your cock?” The question is punctuated by another slow rise and fall, a swivel of his hips that leaves Bohn gasping on a moan of his own. Fuck, Duen could probably come just from that, from the description of what he’s going to do to him interlaced with the obscene sounds he’s making.

“I want that,” Duen answers, if only because he really should. Bohn is being so good for him, gorgeous and perfect as he settles into a steady rhythm in his lap. The least he can do is express how much he’s enjoying it. He maps out the slope of Bohn’s ass as he rides him, traces the shaking lines of the muscles in his thighs as he presses up, sinks back down, biting his lip to stifle a whine that makes Duen’s heart skip. His eyes are glazed the first time he comes, and Duen flattens a hand over his abdomen to chase the way the orgasm washes under his skin hard enough to feel with every ripple inside him. “Good?” Duen asks, pleased when Bohn pants out an affirmative. “You want me to take over, or are you good?”

“Y-you can roll us, I don’t think I can-” he huffs, a little startled as Duen proceeds to do exactly that, pressing Bohn’s knees up towards his chest as he grinds into him. “ _Fuck_ ,” Bohn keens beneath him, scrabling to get a hold on his shoulders with unsteady hands. “Slowly, baby. You can take me, but let’s go slow.”

Luckily, slow is Duen’s _favorite_. He adores taking his time with Bohn, he really does. “Hickies okay?” he asks, slightly guilty that he forgot to ask before giving one earlier. Bohn nods. Good. “Teeth?”

Bohn nods again. “Nothing too hard,” he clarifies though. “Keep it soft. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

Duen figures he probably won’t, not this time, but he keeps it in mind just in case. Bohn goes quiet when he starts again, but it’s distinctly different from the silence he’d held during this months ago. His hands are wandering, his mouth trailing hot kisses over Duen’s shoulder where he buries his face in the crook of his neck. He’s an active participant in every thrust, rolling up into Duen each time he cants in. Persistent fingers fluctuate between scratching lines over Duen’s shoulder blades and carding up into the hair at the base of his neck, and when he drags Bohn’s hips a little higher, presses in at the angle he knows will make him mewl, he’s rewarded with a shuddering squeeze of Bohn’s thighs around his waist. He bites at the pulse of Bohn’s throat, just a slight dig of his teeth into sensitive skin, gratified when Bohn’s chest heaves with a strangled moan. Unfortunately, as much as he’d like to draw this out, he’s already a little strung thin from watching Bohn reach ecstasy twice, and Duen can feel that he’s not going to last. 

“Phi, can I knot you?” he growls. It’s catching already, and he reluctantly tries to shift back a little to keep it from doing so as he grinds forwards again. To his endless delight though, Bohn pulls him right back in with insistent heels against the small of his back. 

“You fucking better,” Bohn mutters.

Duen drags his hips up further, practically folding him in half as he does exactly that. Bohn’s back arches beneath him, a sound that’s almost a sob stuttering from his lungs as Duen gets a hand between them to work him over the edge again. And he’s tight, so fucking tight, bearing down on him in fluttering wakes until Duen can’t help but try and press in just a little deeper when he comes. “Fuck, _Bohn_ ,” he gasps, bowing over him. It’s not a rut orgasm, but it’s probably as close as he’s ever come to one outside of it. 

Bohn’s hands are in his hair again, brushing his bangs from his eyes as Duen pants around a moan, his hips jerking forwards as he tries instinctually, desperately, to somehow bury himself deeper inside him. “Look at you,” Bohn whispers, the syllables pitching into a purr when Duen gathers him closer, buries his face against his throat to bite at the spot under his jaw that he likes, his cock still twitching inside him. “Knew you still wanted me,” he says, and he sounds so delighted, giddy despite how breathless and overstimulated he is, that Duen is sorely tempted to flip him over and actually make good on his earlier request to be fucked into forgetting his own name. 

“Of course I do,” he mutters. "I've always wanted you."

"Yeah?" Bohn says, as if he's somehow actually surprised. "Me too."

~~~***~~~

Poor timing, or at least spectacularly and hilariously miscalculated timing, seems to be transferable via semen or something, because for some god unknown reason Bohn decides to say, “Hey. We should, like, get married,” while Duen has his head between his thighs and his tongue _inside him_. 

Duen freezes, certain he misheard because surely, _surely_ Bohn did _not_ just ask him for his hand in marriage while he’s in the middle of _eating him out_. He shifts back on his stomach a bit, his grip on Bohn’s thighs tightening as he maneuvers just enough to swipe his tongue over his lips and cast him a flat, disbelieving glare from between his legs. “So,” he says evenly, “am I just that bad at this that you’re bored enough to start imagining nuptials? Or am I so _good_ at it that you couldn’t help but propose on the spot?”

“Uuuhhhhh the second one,” Bohn says. He’s still pretty flushed, his breathing a bit staggered, and when he reaches down to thread his fingers into Duen’s hair his grip is firm, a little demanding. Duen smirks. “Also I’ve just been thinking, and stuff. And if it’s still on the table I thought I should let you know that I’m into it. Anyways, continue.”

Duen lifts an eyebrow, perhaps a bit too smug now. “Hmm? Why?”

Bohn collapses back into the pillows with a strangled groan. “Oh my _god_. I’ve done this to myself,” he laments, an arm thrown over his face. “I ran my mouth at the wrong moment and now my fiance is going to leave me hanging.”

“I don’t remember agreeing,” Duen hums, snickering when that earns him a glare.

“You fucking better,” Bohn growls. 

“Hmm,” Duen muses, trying not to grin as he turns to nip at the inside of Bohn’s thigh. “I suppose I could marry you. You’re pretty handsome.” He laves a tongue over the imprint of his teeth, peeking at Bohn beneath his lashes to watch his breath hitch. “And I do like you quite a bit,” he teases. Bohn’s chest heaves when he nibbles at his thigh again, working his way further in with soft, attentive kisses. “Plus, I should probably lock you down while I have you like this,” he purrs, “because you taste _amazing_.”

Bohn groans when he finally ducks his head back down to make good on that last declaration. Duen has him shaking apart within minutes, his thighs trembling in his hands and his core quivering around his tongue and against his mouth. He wasn’t lying, and he’s not ashamed to glance up at Bohn with hooded eyes as he greedily licks his lips clean, shifting his own hips a bit so he’s not laying directly on top of where he’s come across the sheets just from the near scream Bohn let out when he orgasmed. “Want another one?” he asks, entirely serious, a little disappointed when Bohn shakes his head and tugs at his hair to draw him up his body. 

He settles where directed, bracketing Bohn in with his arms and legs as his boyfriend drags him down for a fierce kiss. “I mean it, you know,” Bohn whispers when he pulls away, cheeks still pink and his eyes just a little starstruck. “I want to marry you. I know you had grand plans to propose and stuff, and there’s a ring stashed away in your sock drawer.”

“Why do you always spoil all your surprises,” Duen deadpans.

Bohn narrows his eyes at him, “It’s the same ring you used for the botched proposal before Bee was born,” he mutters. “Also, shut up? I wanted to ask you. Poor timing aside, I _really really_ wanted to be the one to ask you.”

Affection, stunningly bright despite the years they’ve already spent together, blossoms behind Duen’s ribs with such ferocity that it leaves him breathless. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bohn affirms, his touch almost tentative now as he cards his fingers up through Duen’s hair, brushing his bangs back before he pulls him back down for another searing, lingering kiss. “Fuck, Duen. I love you so fucking much. You know that, right?”

Duen grins, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispers, “I do.” The smile Bohn gives back is slow, confident, and Duen rumbles out a purr as he watches it spread and nuzzles at his boyfriend’s jaw, his ear, pleased beyond words. “Alright. Let’s get married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOF I'm glad that one is over. On to writing part 3, where everything is sunshine and weddings and rainbows and sexy, sexy a/b/o baby making. 
> 
> As always, if you enjoyed it please comment! I love reading reactions and even just simple remarks about whether or not you liked it. Comments make me work faster! Im always excited to share with everyone!


	3. In Safe Harbor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you guys having another baby?"
> 
> Uncomfortably, Duen remembers how Ben had first reacted to the news of Bee, how inconsolable he'd been with the misplaced hurt of thinking he was being replaced. That's what sticks in his mind when he says what he does next. "Can I ask you something first before we talk about that?" Really, he'd planned to do this with Bohn. But Bohn is busy tearing apart their living room, and maybe it's better, more meaningful, if he says it while he and Ben are alone. Ben nods. "What do you think about having the surname Rattananumchock?"
> 
> Ben blinks. "Uh. For . . . The baby? Or . . ."
> 
> "For you," Duen clarifies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is done

In hindsight, this is probably something Duen should have thought to bring up _before_ the day of their wedding, and not during the middle of it. It’s not like they haven’t discussed it at all, though. Sure, he definitely could have mentioned that it was on his mind again prior to the hour they’re supposed to get married, but if he does broach the subject now, at a decently inopportune time, it won’t be completely out of the blue. Or out of character, all things considered. 

Although, he thinks with a moment of muted nervousness, anxiety twisting in his gut for just a second, the last time they had talked about it had been before Bee got sick. While she’s fine now, five years old and pretty much totally oblivious to that eight months or so where she’d been off and on afflicted with ear infections bad enough to warrant multiple hospital visits and a non-invasive surgery, that was still one of the hardest years of Duen’s entire life. And none of that is even accounting for what it did to Bohn. Fuck, he thinks grimly, maybe he shouldn’t bring it up. Bohn’s only been off antidepressants for just under a year, carefully weened from them over a pretty hectic and nerve-wracking period of months. So even if he’s fine now, Duen hasn’t even considered the idea that maybe . . . Maybe their plans have changed.

It’s not like he’ll be mad if they have. How could he? Ultimately, it’s Bohn’s choice, and if he’s changed his mind Duen definitely isn’t going to fault him for it after everything. Still, to say he won’t be at least a little disappointed if his partner doesn’t want more kids would be blatantly lying.

He should do it now, though, he decides resolutely. Before the ceremony. Not because he expects Bohn to be mad, but because the timing of it lines up with what he wants. If they decide now, before the end of the week, and Bohn agrees, Duen could have him knocked up less than two months from today.

That thought sends a tingle through his skin, and he bites his lip, a bit dizzy as what feels like all the blood in his entire body surges down. Fuck.

Duen peeks out into the hall before he exits the room, wary of running into anyone in his hasty dash across and two doors down, and is relieved to find it empty. He makes it to Bohn’s changing room by practically flying over the short distance, slamming the door behind him as soon as he’s safely inside.

Bohn shrieks when he enters, one hand at his mouth with his other arm crossed over his chest, and Duen rolls his eyes so hard he’s afraid they might fall out of his head. “We’re not supposed to see each other before the wedding!” Bohn gasps, all faux horror. He’s lucky he’s cute, Duen thinks with a sigh, because he’s absolutely ridiculous and it's usually on purpose. 

“I just want to talk to you for a second,” he says before Bohn can continue his act of mock offense. “Nothing serious, but I thought I should . . .” He draws off as Bohn uncoils from his position of pretending to cover himself, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he gets his first good look at how his partner is dressed. It’s one thing to glimpse a tuxedo on a hanger in their closet for a few weeks, he decides, and it’s _entirely another_ to see it in person and on the body it’s been tailored for. “Uh . . .”

Bohn’s slightly apprehensive expression turns wicked in an instant, sparks dancing in his eyes and a salacious smirk curling the corners of his lips. “Oh? Like what you see?” He poses, tugging out the lapels of the neatly trimmed navy jacket. His champagne pink tie is slightly askew, the white button-up beneath not yet tucked in, and when he turns to show off the back Duen sucks in an unsteady breath as he spots a faint, but still distinct line beneath the fabric across his ass. And, he realizes as quickly as he notices it, there is no way in hell Bohn isn’t currently standing in just such a position to let him see it on accident.

“How long until the ceremony?” he breathes out, voice cracking.

“Like an hour,” Bohn returns easily.

Duen has him backed up against the far wall of the room in an instant, pulling their bodies flush together as he reaches around to palm at the tight fabric of Bohn’s pants. “What did you buy?” he practically growls, tilting his head down to nip at the underside of Bohn’s jaw. He can feel some of it, thin intricacies of patterned cloth hidden beneath the suit. His fingers trace the edges when he finds them, breath hitching as he feels how tightly it must be hugging Bohn’s skin.

Bohn squirms in his hold until he manages to loop his arms around Duen’s neck, and when he presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth Duen doesn’t miss the curve of a smirk. “Just a little something for later.”

“Later, huh?” Duen mutters. “It’s not later right now, though,” he reminds. How wrinkled will the tux get if he divests of Bohn of it now, he wonders. Will it make a difference if he sets it primly aside versus just tossing it on the floor? He shifts to dip his fingers below the waistband, startled as he instantly brushes against lace not just there, but also where his palms have started to ruck up the back of Bohn’s shirt. _Fuck_. 

“I’m only going to give you a peek,” Bohn teases near his ear, clearly delighted by the reactions he’s already received. “Don’t get too excited. Anyways, didn’t you have something to talk to me about?” Duen freezes. Shit, he’d almost forgotten. He starts to take a step back only to be reeled in again by Bohn getting a firm grip on his tie. “I didn’t say stop,” he purrs. “Can’t you just tell me _while_ you grope me? I promise I’ll behave.”

Considering he’s already not behaving in the slightest, Duen highly doubts that. Plus, feeling Bohn up while asking if he can put another baby in him seems like it might not be the most fantastic of ideas. “I . . .” He fumbles for what to say, how to word what he wants without sounding either excessively lewd or demanding. Inhaling slowly, Duen settles his hands on Bohn’s hips, forcing his brain to find the right words while his thumbs brush over more hints of whatever his fiance is wearing underneath. Focus. “You can say no,” he begins, because he really, really wants to make sure that’s clear. It’s Bohn’s choice. “But I was wondering if . . . Well, since we’re literally about to get married, uhm . . .” Yeah, okay. This is maybe a lot harder than he thought it would be. Bohn is looking at him so earnestly though, his fingers laced together behind Duen’s neck while he waits for him to just spit it out. Even if he doesn’t want it anymore, it’s soothing in its own way to see the proof that Bohn won’t be mad if he asks. All he can do is try. “Did you want to, maybe . . . Stop taking your birth control?”

He holds his breath as soon as the last syllables fall from his lips, the tiniest bit tense while he watches Bohn’s eyes widen and his mouth fall open in soundless surprise. “ _Duen_ ,” he breathes.

“You can say no!” Duen reiterates quickly. “Really! I won’t, uhm, be upset or anything. But I do . . .” He swallows as Bohn’s arms tighten just a little around him. “I would . . . I would like to have another baby with you.”

For once he can’t quite read Bohn’s expression. He’s clearly startled, or at least that’s what the slack-jawed look conveys, but whether that’s in a good or bad way, Duen can’t tell. His heart jumps into his throat though when Bohn starts to pull away, his breath catching, but he releases him without a fight. Bohn crosses the room away from him in quick strides, picking up his bag from the corner by the door and rifling around in it for a moment. Duen stands stock-still, waiting, desperate now for some kind of verbal response just so he can remember how to function without almost hyperventilating. But then Bohn straightens up again, a familiar foil bubble packet in hand, and whoops as he whirls around to slam dunk it right into the nearby trash can. 

“Fucking _finally_!” Bohn practically crows. “I thought you would never ask!” He’s back across the room in an instant, throwing himself into Duen’s instinctively held open arms with a laugh. The purr that vibrates in him is fierce, unmistakably thrilled beyond measure, and Duen stands there for a moment, stunned, as it sinks in that Bohn just _agreed_. He’s rubbing his cheek all over Duen’s own, warm and wiggly in his glee. “I was so worried,” he hums, burying his face into Duen’s shoulder. “I thought maybe, after that year with Bee, you wouldn’t want any more. I was . . . I was so unfair to you, and if you never asked I wasn’t going to be upset, but I still . . . I still wanted . . .”

Duen winds his arms under his, tugging him impossibly closer. “Phi, _no_. You were _sick_. I don’t hold any of that against you at all.”

Bohn purrs louder, nuzzling at his neck, his jaw. “I want to have your baby again,” he murmurs, teeth dragging across his earlobe. Duen feels his heart trip over his ribs in his chest, dizzy as his blood makes a U-turn and rushes southward with renewed vigor. “I want that _so much_.”

There’s no clock in the room, and Duen’s phone is living a comfortable life in his pocket, much too far away for him to check how long they have with hands that are already wandering under the hem of Bohn’s pants again. Whatever, he figures he has time. Besides, who the hell is going to start the wedding without the grooms? “You said I could have a peek,” he reminds as he traces out the texture of lace lower, lower, heat blooming in his gut as he finds that it’s neatly cupping Bohn’s ass, but vanishes when he searches a little further forward. Easy access? _Naughty_. 

“Hmm,” Bohn shivers under his touch. “I suppose I could. Just a peek though. It’s supposed to be your wedding gift.”

Duen leans back just enough to catch his eye, torn between fondness and exasperation as he says, “You realize that makes _you_ the wedding gift, right?”

Bohn grins, cheshire smug. “Of course. And lucky you, I even went to the trouble to wrap myself.”

Really, Duen thinks, Bohn is _very_ lucky he’s cute. And so is he, because he’s going to fucking _eat him_. “Define ‘peek,’” he says as evenly as he can, already turning Bohn around in his embrace. Bohn snickers and goes willingly as Duen crowds him up against the wall again, this time pressing his front to the surface. “Is this a ‘peek?’”

“Depends on how much you need to take off to get what you want,” Bohn goads. “Think you can do it without ruining my tux? Or spoiling your gift?”

“You’re already very spoiled,” Duen mutters, hooking his thumbs under the waistline of Bohn’s suit pants. He tugs them down to below his ass, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of burgundy and black. As he suspected, it's lace, delicate patterns curled into blooms of unmistakable rose petals and leaves. They twist together all across the curve of Bohn's ass cheeks and part artfully at the base of his legs. Duen can just make out the top of silky straps disappearing further down, likely connected to garters, and a tangle of more climbing up his back, around his waist and abdomen. It's an entire _body cage_ , he realizes, a possessive growl rumbling through him of its own accord.

He wants to trace the silken straps up, feel the extent of it all, but Bohn snatches his curious hands away when he tries, casting him an unimpressed look over his shoulder. "That's more than a peek."

"You never really defined 'peek,'" Duen reminds. He gets a knee between both of Bohn's as he says it, pushing his thighs apart. Bohn leans forward when he does so and braces his arms against the wall with a pretty, breathy little sound. "Tell me what you want," Duen growls at his neck, scraping his teeth down the slim strip of skin between Bohn's hair and the collar of his white shirt.

Bohn whimpers under the barely-there bite. "As long as you don't ruin the tux, and finish before we're missed, you can do whatever," he gasps. "Just, _fuck_ -" His fingers flex uselessly against the wall when Duen presses forward to grind against his ass. "Yeah. Do that. _God_."

"Just this?" Duen smirks, repeating the motion. Bohn shivers bodily, practically clawing at the wall now as he tries to find purchase. "You sure? Positive? You don't want me inside you?"

The noise Bohn makes in response to that is probably way too loud considering that their friends are only a couple of doors away getting changed. He casts Duen a rather rueful look over his shoulder, chest heaving. "Who taught you to be such a tease?" He demands. "You can't just _say that_."

Duen absolutely can. He just did. "Well?" He prompts, smugly coy on the heels of that response. "Is that what you want? Better tell me quick, or we'll run out of time." He rolls his hips again, and even with the layers still left between them, the friction he gets from it is enough to have him biting his lip. "Come on," he urges. God, he loves this bit, loves making Bohn beg for it. "If you don't say it, I'll have to leave you here just like this."

Bohn swears under his breath. He fumbles a hand behind him for one of Duen’s on his hip, which Duen takes readily. "You better not," he growls. 

That still isn't an answer. Regardless, Duen uses his now only free hand to pull himself out of his pants. He lines them up, brushing the head of his cock over Bohn’s core just to give him a taste. "Phi," he cajoles. "I'm not going to fuck you unless you ask for it."

"I'm asking for it," Bohn groans. "Please, _fuck_ , please just-" Duen watches, entranced as Bohn adjusts his stance, spreads his legs a little wider. He's panting now, his forehead leaning on the wall. Trailing a hand down the lace around his ass, Duen finds the spot where it parts and skims his touch to feel that Bohn is already quivering and wet. _Good_ _boy_. Bohn hiccups on a needy little noise when he presses two fingers into the heat of him. It earns him a full body shudder, and an insistent, desperate roll of hips towards his palm when he pulls them back out again. " _Duen_ ," Bohn whines, "you're being _mean_."

He definitely is. Duen shifts to stand more flush against him, tugging Bohn closer until everything he wants is enticingly within reach. All he has to do is move forward. To make that clear he works a hand between Bohn’s legs to grip himself, nudge at his partner’s entrance. “Come on phi, you’re running out of time,” he purrs. “Don’t you want it?”

“Divorce!” Bohn gasps, squirming now. “Preemptive divorce! _God_ , Duen, fuck me, I _can’t_ , I-” He actually squeaks a bit when Duen takes the permission and opportunity to push inside, apparently taken just a little off guard despite begging for it. The breath that escapes him is ragged as it slowly pitches into a moan until Duen is fully sheathed in him. “ _Hah_!”

Duen nips at that thin line of skin at the base of his neck, just enough to make sure it blooms red for awhile. Bohn is squeezing the hand on his hip, the one he grappled to get a hold on earlier, fingers flexing between Duen’s. “You okay?” Duen asks carefully, nervous now with how quiet Bohn has gotten in a matter of seconds, how much he’s trembling around him. 

“F-fine,” Bohn assures hoarsely. “A little, _ah_ \- a little overwhelmed, maybe.” Duen tucks his chin into the soft juncture of his shoulder, watching with hooded eyes as Bohn’s Adam’s apple bobs around a thick inhale. “I might, uh . . . Don’t freak out if I get my wedding crying out of the way now, alright?”

 _Oh_. 

“ _Bohn_ ,” Duen murmurs, enamored in an instant even as Bohn quickly tilts his head away to try and hide the first pinpricks of tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. 

“Shut up.”

He absolutely will not. Duen grinds forwards, smirking as it elicits him a fresh, oversensitive gasp. “I think it’s cute,” he purrs. Kissing his way up Bohn’s jaw, he picks up a steady, if slow pace. The ceremony can wait a few extra minutes, he wants to savor this. Every little breathless noise he drags from Bohn’s lungs is hitched, just the tiniest bit wet, and he tucks each of them away in the back of his mind, notes of a perfect symphony of adoration. He treasures all of it, flattening a palm to Bohn’s abdomen to encourage him to move with him, dizzy whenever his partner’s hips roll obligingly back to take his cock deeper. His fingers find one of the silken tangles there, curling into them for tethered purchase. “There we go,” he whispers, awed as he stills and Bohn just keeps going, gasping around tellingly high sounds. Bohn uses the wall for support, his spine trembling as he braces a forearm on it, his forehead leaning against the smooth plane of his sleeve. His gaze is fixated downwards, focused on his spread thighs and the attentive rhythm he’s found with which to chase his own ecstasy. “Just think,” Duen hums, intent on letting him continue to pleasure himself just like that, “the next time I make love to you, we’ll be husbands.”

He can feel Bohn’s heart stutter from where they’re pressed together, a light trip of unguarded emotion that reverberates back into the spaces between his own ribs. There are still tears brimming at the corner of Bohn’s eyes, a few overflowing to drip down to his jaw where Duen kisses each of them away before they can stray to the floor. He wonders faintly if Bohn ever thought they would get this far, only realizing that he probably didn’t at quite a few points, actually. Once, he’d even called Duen’s hints at a future together “ _post-fuck alpha brain_ ,” and another he’d handed over a positive pregnancy test with such palpable terror that it had left Duen reeling enough not to comprehend what he was being shown for a few too-long moments. “Told you we’d get here,” he whispers, endlessly infatuated when Bohn whimpers in the wake of the reminder. “My first and last.”

Bohn keens, and his legs shake so harshly when he comes that Duen has to bodily press him against the wall to keep him on his feet. “ _F-fuck_ ,” he shivers. “Fuck, oh _god_ , I-” It’s a good one, Duen notes, growling as it ripples through Bohn hard enough to feel, to leave them both breathless as Bohn clenches around him in waves, hot, _hotter_ , tight enough to make him see stars. Bohn slumps after a minute, panting with aftershocks that Duen traces over his abdomen with a thumb. “Hurry,” he groans, the flush painting his cheeks such a pretty scarlet that Duen can’t help but kiss them. “Hurry and knot me, I _need_ -”

"Not done with you yet," Duen says, interrupting the babble. Electricity coils in his gut when Bohn casts him an ember-tinted look over his shoulder, the hunger in his gaze so obvious it makes Duen quake. He growls, burying his face in the opposite crook of Bohn’s neck. Fuck, he's so- "I'm gonna use you," he admits, husky even to his own ears. His hands tighten their hold on Bohn’s hips, pressing his upper body further against the plane of the wall at the same time that he pulls his waist back, getting that just-right angle to really grind in deep every time he drives forward. Bohn has gone pliant where Duen has him pinned, his fingers flexing uselessly against the smooth surface for something to hang on to. If Duen flipped him around he'd be earning nail scores across his back, but he keeps Bohn where he is. 

Each thrust wrings an overstimulated exhale out of his partner, the air quickly filled with soft litanies of, " _ah-ah-ah_ ," and the obscene slap of skin on skin. There's no way someone hasn't heard them by now, but at this point Duen doesn't care in the slightest. He nuzzles at Bohn’s throat, pushing aside the white collar of his button-up with his nose far enough to reveal the perfect amount of skin for him to really bite into. He's close when he does so, the soles of his feet digging into the floor as he feels his knot begin to catch and instinctively shallows his thrusts. Bohn has started to rock back into him again, quiet praises falling from his lips as he does so. "Come on, baby," he moans. "Come on. I know you can take me harder than this," he goads breathlessly. "I bet you could make me scream if you really wanted to."

It's amazing, really, the totally inappropriate times Bohn chooses to start running his mouth. Although it's Duen's own fault for encouraging it, he supposes, especially since he's never taken Bohn's horny bullying as anything other than a _challenge_. 

He uses the grip of his teeth on Bohn’s throat to keep him still while he untangles the hand wound up in the silk straps around his middle to skim his touch lower. Bohn jolts back into him as soon as he gets his fingers where they need to be, the sharp and wavering inhale he gets a delightful match to the intrinsic way in which Bohn rolls towards him to meet the next deep cant of Duen’s cock inside him. He's quick to place his other hand over Bohn's mouth, feeling the vibration of the loud, starstruck mewl through where he's biting at his neck milliseconds before it staggers out. This time when Bohn comes he follows him right over the brink, shoving in with a groan as his knot sticks. 

It's _a lot_ , a little too close in intensity to a rut orgasm for Duen not to get the tiniest bit lightheaded. He keeps stuttering his hips, trying desperately to grind just a bit deeper with every harsh spill that has him panting on hoarse and uneven noises of his own. Bohn’s smirk against his palm is smug despite how he's still breathing heavily too, and when Duen lets his hand fall away he gifts him an extremely satisfied look. "If that's what I got out of you with just a peek, the full thing is gonna make you _feral_ ," he grins.

Duen drops his head between his shoulder blades with a muted growl. Fuck, it probably will. Still, "How do you know it was your lingerie that did that, and not the fact that you just agreed to let me breed you again?" he counters.

The glance Bohn casts him at that is heady, honeyed and warm, but his tone betrays his pride. "It was both," he says pompously. 

Duen rolls his eyes. It was totally both.

~~~***~~~

For the most part the ceremony goes off without a hitch. And it’s really a good thing that Bohn got his emotional tears out of the way ahead of the time, because Duen is a fucking _mess_. Bohn chuckles at him at least once, but for the most part keeps his mouth shut, lest Duen really give him a side-eye for his hypocrisy. Just because he’s not going to tell anyone that Bohn cried earlier doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and that he won’t hold it over his head in private for as long as he likes. In the end they get through it with a still fairly minimal amount of blubbering, although Duen comes pretty close to full-out sobs during the sai monkhon. 

He’s still dabbing at his eyes a bit as they move on to the reception, shoving at Bohn’s side when he leans against his shoulder to try and coo at him, grinning from ear to ear. “My husband is so sensitive,” he teases. 

Duen kicks him under the table, “I saw you get sniffly when you first saw Ben and Bee in their outfits, so don’t start with me. It’s my wedding day, I can cry if I want to.”

Bohn hums in agreement, scooting his chair closer and resting his chin in the crook of Duen’s shoulder. “Sure. I never said you couldn’t. I hope someone got pictures of it though. Who did we put on photography duty again? Mek?”

“You say ‘we’ as if you did any of the planning for this at all,” Duen snorts.

“I picked all the attire,” Bohn reminds lightly.

Duen levels him with a deadpan stare, “Only because you forbid me from doing it.”

He gets his cheeks squeezed for that one, huffing while Bohn says, “Well, _someone_ tried to choose a tux for himself that looked like it crawled out of a paisley-printed vat of toxic waste, so I had to step in. I love you, babe, but your sense of fashion is so askew it’s from another plane of existence.”

Rude? Duen's fairly certain that isn't actually true, especially considering Bohn regularly asks him to choose shirts for him when they're out shopping. And then he wears them. So yeah, seems fake. "What a lovely compliment," he returns smoothly, raising an eyebrow as Bohn's face immediately starts to twist into an anticipatory grimace. "You get the first shift of dealing with niceties at the table."

"Ew _why_?"

Duen gives him a consoling pat on the cheek, and turns to sweep Bee out of her seat and twirl her away towards the dancefloor. 

Their guestlist had been fairly small, mostly and definitely most importantly mainly consisting of their friends, though Duen had begrudgingly invited a few members of extended family at his mother’s request. Unsurprisingly, Bohn never so much as mentioned wanting to add any of his own personal blood relations to those in attendance, which was really for the best because Duen wasn’t all that keen on being put away for _murder_ the same day he got married. So while the majority of the festivities at the reception are occupied by their friends, he does still spot the stray older aunt and uncle among the revalrie. They seem to be sticking to themselves for the most part, which Duen is glad for, because he’s not actually that close to any of them. His mother had handed him a lineup of names that would apparently have been rude not to invite, and he’d addressed the envelopes accordingly. 

He loves his mother dearly, but in that sort of distant manner with which one loves a rather absent parent. Hell, Daonua had basically spent a majority of her elementary school years with him and Bohn, which was more than enough of an example towards how he too was raised. As for his father, he’s fairly indifferent. It’s hard to be close to a man who was never home, and then only had criticism to offer when he was. While he’d never said anything, Duen knew he’d found the fact that he’d had a kid before getting married distasteful, and that wasn’t even mentioning the rather vicious, dangerously close to physical fight they’d gotten into when he’d first started dating Bohn, and his father found out he had chosen an omega that had already had a child that, biologically at least, wasn’t his. So yeah, he’s not too enthused about any of the aunts and uncles milling around the party, but he also didn’t really have it in him to get into an argument with his mother over it. And while his father had been there for the actual ceremony, he had ducked out almost as soon as it was over, so that’s at least one weight off his shoulders.

His focus stays in the moment for the most part, eager to burn the evening into his mind as much as he possibly can. Bee giggles the entire time he dances with her, delighted when he has her stand on his feet and whirls her around the room. He’s never been particularly good at dancing (which, if he admits it, is definitely an understatement), but he figures it’s the enthusiasm that counts. He manages to take a turn with other people too, even passing Bee off to Ben for awhile just to twirl his son’s girlfriend around. If he’s bad at dancing, at least Anna seems to find it amusing, as she laughs at him nearly as much as Bee had. 

By the time he makes his way back to their table he’s pretty much had his fill of fun, although Bee is practically vibrating to get to go out again, much to Bohn’s delight. They trade spots just in time for Duen to get the brunt of the social niceties from his own family, so it’s for the best. He’s in the middle of talking to an aunt who’s offering him way too many, super uncomfortably personal anecdotes about her own first of what he thinks might be three marriages when Boss swings by with his kid.

“Favorite groom of the hour,” Boss starts, and Duen sighs and holds his hands out for the toddler. Boss deposits them into his grip without further ado, grinning from ear to ear. “Thanks. I just want to dance with Mek for a bit, I promise I’ll be right back.”

He will not be right back, but Duen doesn’t especially mind. Sun is a good, mostly quiet child, and true to fashion reaches for the set of crayons Bee had left behind and starts meticulously drawing over the paper table covering they’ve put out on every seating for the kids in attendance. 

After awhile Ben joins them, taking up one of the chairs across from Duen to slump over the table. “Too much dancing?” Duen asks lightly, gently prying a crayon from Sun’s hands before they can shove it in their mouth for a taste. 

“No. I played one of Tingting’s games she set up as the MC, and since the younger people can’t drink as punishment, she gave me a cup of every condiment she found behind the bar when I lost.”

Gross. But Duen can’t really berate her for it, since Ben had clearly participated and then agreed on the consequences of his own accord. He’s fifteen, and while he’s still a new enough alpha that some of his choices are tending towards idiocy due to that first big rush of self-inflated pride (Duen’s been there, unfortunately), he’s managed the changes pretty well. Duen pushes an untouched glass of seltzer water towards him in sympathy. “Just know that if you throw up tonight, your dad will never let you live it down.”

“I knoooooow,” Ben whines into the tabletop. 

Sun seems to have decided repeatedly having their crayons taken away from them isn’t worth the possibility of getting a taste of the forbidden snack, so Duen sets the ones he’s confiscated back on the table. Halfheartedly, he sort of hopes his own next kid is a little bit like this one. He loves Bee, and Ben, but they’re both clearly Bohn’s offspring through and through, despite how much Bee looks like him (Duen’s not ever sure he’ll get over her eyes, but for that matter, he knows Bohn won’t either). It would be nice to have at least one who takes after him a little, the way Sun seems to lean more towards Mek’s studious quietness rather than Boss’ boisterous attitude. He’ll be happy with anything though, and he smiles to himself at just the thought of another baby. So it’s almost with an absentminded air that he ends up asking, “Would you mind if your dad and I met Anna’s parents?”

Across the table Ben sits up abruptly, wide-eyed and startled. “Uh . . . Why?”

Duen shrugs. “She seems like a good girl. If you’re serious about her, I’d like to get to know her family better.” He already knows a fair bit about them anyways. They own a cute little Thai confectionary place in the city he’s seen in passing on his way to the clinic but never had a chance to visit. Ben spends a lot of his afternoons there these days, his early fascination with making meals with Duen having now evolved into an actual hobby that, if Duen’s not mistaken, might end up being his intended career. He’s been coming home with all kinds of things he’s helped make with Anna’s phorh, mostly desserts that are just complicated and delicate enough that Duen himself rarely attempts them. The leum kleun had been his personal favorite. 

Ben flushes so violently it tints even the tips of his ears. “She’s just a friend . . .”

“Weird,” Duen hums, “none of my friends kiss me goodbye in the driveway after they drop me off at home. I didn’t know that was a thing in Thailand now.”

He might be teasing, but Ben takes it in stride, narrowing his eyes for a heartbeat before he sighs. “Fine. I’ll see if she’s okay with that. I don’t know why you’d want to meet her family though, they’re just like everyone else.”

Any further discussion is interrupted as another congregation of Duen’s relatives flocks around the table. The over-sharing aunt is back, this time with one of Duen’s cousins that looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else, and an uncle from his father’s side pulls back a chair to Ben’s right. That one Duen keeps an eye on, his attention divided as soon as he notices. 

He’s fielding more unsolicited nonsense advice from his aunt (such as what items to arrange on the bed before sex to garuntee an alpha boy in conception, much to Duen’s disgust and insistence that he doesn’t care what primary or secondary gender his kids are), when he starts to catch the faintest whiff of Ben’s mounting distress. It’s extremely subtle, and he’s certain no one else even notices it, only attune to it himself because Ben is _his kid_. 

“No, we picked a mixed style wedding because Bee really wanted to be a flower girl, and she was upset when she found out Thai weddings don’t have one. It wasn’t my idea at all,” Ben says hastily. As casually as can be, Duen adjusts Sun on his lap to get a better hold on them, just in case he needs to hand the toddler off to someone and step in. Ben is fifteen though, and being so newly presented, he probably won’t want him to unless he indicates otherwise. Pride and all. Still, he shifts a little more attention to the conversation on the other side of the table, responding to his aunt now in continually dismissive monotones.

“Really?” his uncle asks, his tone treading that border between genuine bemusement and flagrant, rude disbelief. “I would have thought it would be yours, you being barely Thai and all.”

Duen’s blood runs cold.

Ben stutters, “I’m, uh, I’m a fourth Thai. My dad is half, and phorh is-”

The uncle scoffs before he can finish, “You’re at least two thirds European. Your hair and eyes give that away. Your father must have been at least half Thai as well.”

“Phorh is Thai,” Ben insists, and Duen tenses up as he hears how low his tenor runs as he says it. 

“Now you’re just being ornery,” the uncle sighs, rolling his eyes. “You know very well I’m talking about your real father.”

Were Sun not sitting in his lap, tiny hands drumming at his arms, Duen would have already launched himself across the table. As it is he still barely represses a snarl, every muscle in his body tense. Who is this man again? His father’s brother? He’s going to drag him out of here the first chance he gets and _skin him_. How dare he? His eyes dart to Ben, a lump in his throat as he takes in the stricken expression on his face that starts to twist into a deep frown.

“I . . .” Ben stammers, swallows, biting back the first notes of a growl he’s not yet quite old enough to control as much as a more experienced alpha. “Phorh _is_ my father. At least in every way that _actually matters_. I don’t really see what my, uh . . . What that has to do with anything . . .”

The scent of his dismay, his unease and anger, is palpable now, enough so that Sun has gone even quieter than usual in Duen’s arms, and it’s started to draw the attention of the other people crowded around the table. Duen’s cousin he can’t remember the name of darts off in the other direction, and his aunt stops talking just to gape at them.

Luckily, he doesn’t end up having to figure out who to hand Sun to, because in a heartbeat Ram has materialized behind where the uncle is sitting, gotten a firm hand to the back of his neck, and slammed him bodily into the floor. Ben scrambles out of his chair with a startled sound, and Duen’s on his feet to pull him away with his free hand from the quick scuffle that ensues. Regardless of the uncle’s stature and seniority, Ram easily pins him, a knee to the man’s back and his hand still clamped over his neck as he holds him face-down to the tile. The smile he gives as he wins is casual to the uninitiated onlooker, but obviously vicious to his close friends. Somewhere in the throng of people, Duen hears King make an audible, giddy sound, and he rolls his eyes.

“You come here on the day of my Duenhaw’s wedding,” Ram says coldly. He glances up, just enough to get a decisive nod from Duen, and then promptly hefts the uncle up and tosses him right out of the reception hall. 

All and all it’s a rather explosive climax to the night, but it’s far more satisfying than it would have been if Duen had given in to the urge to try and deal with it himself. Ram has always been an exceptional alpha, and he’s not really surprised to see that he’s clearly taken it upon himself to play bouncer for his friends. When he returns, Duen sets Sun against one hip to pull him aside and thank him properly.

Ram just shrugs, either unimpressed with his own actions or not thinking what he did requires any praise. “Is Ben okay?” he asks quietly.

Duen pastes on his best smile that he’s aware falls short, especially in front of Ram. They’ve been friends too long for his poor attempts at feigning a level of confidence he doesn’t feel not to be immediately seen through. “Yeah,” he replies anyways. “He and Anna went to go sit outside for a bit. He’ll be fine.”

Sun is thoroughly passed out by the time Boss and Mek come back for them, drooling at Duen’s shoulder while he scrolls through his phone. He has half a dozen chrome pages pulled up, an open email inquiry in another tab, and for a second he doesn’t even notice Boss hovering in front of him. He gives Duen a hasty wai he probably only half means, apologizing profusely for leaving him with Sun for as long as he did, to which Duen waves a dismissive hand. “You should go hit the dance floor again while you have the chance though,” Boss insists as he takes the toddler back, Sun flopping like a drooling potato sack in his arms. “There’s this guy out there who’s been whining for a first dance for a little while now.”

Sure enough when he glances across the room, Duen easily spots Bohn standing on the other side of the dance floor, chatting with King and Tee and totally not casting him surreptitious glances out of the corners of his eyes every few seconds. He stays where he is for a couple of minutes, turned around in his seat with his arms casually folded over the back of the chair, enjoying the view and the way it sinks in, all over again, that they’re married now. That’s his husband over there, pretending he isn’t waiting for his attention, and Duen has to hide his face in his forearms for a second to try and smother the grin that blooms. 

It’s Bohn who ends up making his way over first, his hands on his hips and his lips pursed. “You’re not going to ask me to dance?” he huffs, and Duen smiles so hard his cheeks hurt.

“What if I can’t dance?”

Bohn rolls his eyes, “You were sashaying away with Bee, and half our friends for that matter, about an hour and a half ago, don’t give me that.”

Duen shrugs. That was all fun and games though, and this is . . . This is Bohn, and god damn it if he isn’t always going to try and give this man his best. “I never learned how to actually dance,” he reminds, a little more subdued. Really, he does want to, but he should make sure that Bohn understands it won’t be anything elegant or refined like he’s probably imagining.

His husband gives him a deadpan look and holds out his arms, his hands open in what Duen recognizes is the classic positioning for a basic waltz. “Unfortunately, one of us lived through an entire semester of ballroom dancing and etiquette when they were in high school. Stand up, I’ll lead.”

And he does. As Duen suspected, it doesn’t end up being anything fancy, and he’s somehow a little more mortified about it all than he had been when he’d just been making a fool of himself with his five-year-old awhile prior, but it’s good. The music is slow, the tune one he vaguely recognizes, and every once in awhile he catches a camera flash out of the corners of his eyes. None of that matters though, his focus ever fixated on fond eyes and a cocky smile. 

He only steps on Bohn’s toes twice.

~~~***~~~

They go to the same bed and breakfast they’d once rekindled their relationship in. Duen is excessively fond of the place, and when he’d mentioned his intentions to book it for their short little honeymoon weekend Bohn had turned a truly excessive shade of scarlet. Which was, of course, the point Duen remembered it was also the place he’d been proposed to at a poorly timed, but no less memorable moment, which meant he _definitely_ had to book a room for this occasion. 

The bed isn’t decorated with roses tonight, and Duen notes that they didn’t manage to get the exact same room through a stroke of luck. He has a mild suspicion though that someone may have fiddled with both the booking and the room already when he spots what looks suspiciously like a large metal O ring bolted to the headboard of the bed. Hell, upon closer examination, he’s almost certain that it’s actually some sort of repurposed cabinet pull, sturdily screwed into a base and fastened to the wood. When he turns around to make his accusations though, his mouth goes dry as he sees that Bohn is already kicking out of his shoes and undoing his tie.

“Whoa!” Duen exclaims, crossing the room again to still him before he can get too far. Bohn freezes immediately, glancing at him with confused and slightly baleful eyes. “I thought I was supposed to be unwrapping you?”

His bemusement turns to dark delight in an instant, and Bohn lets his hands fall away from his tie to press closer into the waiting circle of Duen’s arms. “That’s right. Don’t throw our ties too far though, you’re going to need them. I made sure they were silk for a reason.”

 _Oh god_. 

Even though it’s really only been a few hours, Duen is eager to take what belongs to him all over again. He starts at the top, pushing Bohn’s tux jacket from his shoulders and letting it pool around his elbows for a bit while he lathers attention over his neck. His hands work open the buttons of the white shirt underneath as he nips and kisses his way over Bohn’s throat. There are new marks to make, old ones to renew. He finds that spot under Bohn’s jaw that he’s been fond of since Bee was conceived, giving it a few lingering kisses before he sinks his teeth into the skin and earns his first of what will be many sharp, sensitive inhales. Once the jacket is fully off, a puddled pile on the floor, he roams his hands up Bohn’s spine to feel the full expanse of the lacey designs intertwined with stretches of silk through the fabric of the shirt. He starts at the small of Bohn’s back, holding a pressured touch there for a moment to make Bohn sigh and press further against his chest, his arms winding around Duen’s neck. His fingers travel up, outlining delicate rose petals and leaf veins until he reaches the back of Bohn’s neck and hooks a thumb into the tight circle of material that’s sitting low on his throat, ending in a metal D ring that’s resting comfortably in the hollow between his husband’s collar bones. Fuck, that’s . . . “A collar,” Duen hears himself say, a little breathless and a lot hoarse. “ _Bohn_.”

“Hmm?” Bohn purrs at his shoulder. He’s softly pliant against him, the quiet hitch in his breathing giving away his anticipation. “Do you like it?”

When he peels the button-up off he gets his first, true look at the extensive intricacy of the body cage. It has to be a custom one, form fitting and almost deliciously personal with it’s design. There’s another D ring fitted into the center of a rose that unfurls between Bohn’s sternum and the base of his ribs, and room has been left open between every design for all of Duen’s favorite places. He shivers when Duen trails reverent hands across it all, biting on his lip when attentive thumbs flick over nipples already chilled into hardening with the sudden exposure. And while Duen saw most of what was under his pants before, he’s still excited to find that everything does indeed end in garters that encircle the thickest part of Bohn’s thighs. “All this just for me,” he muses, walking Bohn backwards towards the bed. He gets a coy, proud smirk for that, and he returns the obvious enjoyment with a kiss he lets last.

Bohn has always been a rather hungry kisser. He likes to draw it out, linger in every second, whether they be wound together or breaking for breath. His eyes are hooded when Duen pulls away to guide him down onto the mattress, and as soon as he’s bouncing off the comforter he’s grabbing at Duen’s shoulders to drag him back to him, eager to continue exactly where they left off. “You didn’t lose track of the ties, right?” he asks hazily when Duen sits up just enough to toss aside the shirt he doesn’t remember getting mostly unbuttoned. 

“Uh, I can find them,” Duen says sheepishly when he casts a quick glance around to note that he has, indeed, done just that.

They’re both under the foot of the bed, one champaign pink and the other navy, and he takes a moment to kick out of his pants before he retrieves them and climbs back over his partner. In his brief absence Bohn has posed himself like he intends to be viewed like a piece of art, one knee bent and his arms arched over his head into the pillows. "Please notice the useful decor I paid extra to have installed," Bohn says, indicating the O ring that he's left his hands lying under with a pointed flick of his eyes towards it. Duen bites the inside of his cheek to keep from bursting out laughing at the total lack of subtlety. "And also, observe that my equally expensive attire is also fitted with similar items."

Duen can't suppress every snicker, and he buries his face in Bohn’s shoulder apologetically as it bubbles out. He can feel Bohn’s reproachful scowl on him long before he glimpses it. When he sits up again he takes his partner’s face between his hands, peppering it with apologetic kisses until he hears the first notes of a pleased purr begin to rumble through him. "You’re amazing," he praises, enamored when Bohn stares back at him with dazzled eyes, the purr pitching louder. "But you're going to have to be more specific with what you want. We haven't done this before."

It takes them a few extra minutes of prep where they would normally just dive right in, Bohn sitting up to carefully explain the knots he wants tied and what he is and isn't okay with, but eventually they get situated again. "I didn’t know you were into this stuff," Duen admits as he folds Bohn’s hands carefully together above his head. The knot he does around his wrists is a little complicated, and he fumbles with it for a bit before he gets it right. "Is that too tight?"

Bohn tests the slack of it with a quick tug. "Nah. Also, I don't know for sure if I am, obviously, but I figured bringing a little spice into a nine year relationship is probably a good idea."

Duen pauses where he's binding the other tie into the D ring around Bohn’s neck. "Uh . . . You do know you don't have to do this, right? I'm not going to get bored of having sex with you or anything if you don't, so-"

Bohn whuffs out an amused, slightly annoyed breath. "Oh no, you're mistaken. I'm absolutely doing this for my own gratification first and foremost. The fact that you clearly have a thing for me being submissive is just a bonus." He wiggles a bit on the bed as he says it, trying to get more comfortable, and in doing so tests the bounds of the tie Duen has just turned into a veritable leash upon his instruction. 

It's almost instinctive, really, for Duen to tighten the hold he has on the silken tether when he does it, and something hot settles into his gut when Bohn immediately stills and sucks in a startled breath. "Okay?" He asks, just to make sure despite how very, very obvious to him that Bohn is not only fine but _extremely_ turned on. Everything about him reads that way, from the faint tremble that ripples up his body, to the wide, dark eclipse of his pupils. And when Duen trails a hand down to flatten a palm over Bohn’s abdomen, he’s unsurprised to feel his muscles tensing, clenching around nothing as he staggers on another heady inhale.

"Yeah," Bohn responds after a heartbeat, the word barely a whisper. "I was gonna say go slow, but, uh, I think we'll be okay with just a safeword?"

Duen hums in agreement, consciously forcing his hand not to continue to wander further south. He can actually smell how wet Bohn is already, and his nostrils flare with every breath he takes. Wait, he chides himself. Not yet. "I don't think your usual one is going to work," he says as evenly as he can, nodding towards the intricate roses currently decorating Bohn’s entire body. "What about 'bouquet?'" It’s close enough theme wise, he figures, and he's relieved when Bohn whispers a hasty affirmative on that front while Duen is already formulating everything he wants to do in his mind. All of it, of course, leads to one conclusion, but he figures while he has Bohn willingly trapped like this he might as well make full use of it by _worshiping_ him.

He can hear the noise Bohn makes when he abandons the tie he's been given the reins for to instead work his way down his partner’s torso. His goal is probably clear, but as always, Bohn still ends up letting out the most stunned little sound when he ducks his head to trail kisses from the thin line of hair that starts at his navel and leads lower. God he loves this, loves especially the way the hitch of Bohn's breath is audible, how much he squirms when Duen looks up at him from between his thighs while he situates himself on his stomach across the mattress. "You know," he smirks, his tongue darting out over his lower lip in anticipation. "Normally, I need to tell you to keep your hands above your head when I do this. And now you _have to_."

It's a shame he never has the patience or brain power for this when Bohn is in heat, because he suspects it's probably a totally different experience just based on how different Bohn smells during those times. However, acknowledging his own rut-folly only means he gets to enjoy doing it whenever else he pleases all the more. 

He starts slow, pulling Bohn’s knees up to rest comfortably on his shoulders. His fingers fiddle with the flowered edges of the garters on his thighs, kneading the soft lace against his flesh until he feels Bohn start to relax a bit more. Just for good measure, he presses a kiss there too, smirking when Bohn shivers a little under the attention. It's easy to stay there for awhile, mouthing bruises into Bohn’s inner thighs until he hears his husband choke on an absolutely wanton noise, so needy now that he's trembling. Were his hands unbound he'd be tangling his fingers insistently in Duen's hair by now, desperate to guide him to where he wants him. But tonight he's at Duen's mercy, and he plans to take full advantage of that.

"Look at you, phi," Duen praises, settling where he's needed to ghost a warm breath over all of Bohn’s most sensitive places. Bohn bites back on a genuine whimper, his back arching as far as it can between the firm grip Duen has on his legs and the tie keeping his hands above his head. "I bet you thought I was just going to fuck you."

"M-might have," Bohn pants. "But apparently you're going to torture me."

He is. 

It’s almost hilariously easy to turn Bohn into putty just like this, to have him gasping and mewling every time Duen licks across his core or sucks at that deliciously acute bundle of nerves. He’s especially loud when Duen finally dips the tip of his tongue inside, shivering bodily as he moans. “Duen, _fuck_ \- I- can you-” He cuts himself off with a proper, spine tingling whimper, and when Duen peeks up at him, flattening his tongue across him as he does so, he watches Bohn’s fingers clenching uselessly at his palms. “Inside. _Please_ , I-”

He obliges in the wake of that unsteady plea, pulling back just long enough to apply a brief tease of pressure over him to leave him quaking before diving back in. Bohn keens as soon as he presses inside again, back bowing off the bed as far as the bonds will allow. His chest heaves, the inhale he sucks in staggered and hoarse, and were his mouth not otherwise occupied, Duen would smirk from the swell of pride that blooms behind his ribs. By now he’s so in tune with Bohn’s little tells that the ease with which he responds is learned instinct. He’s a mess, on edge with a shuddering sob, his thighs tense against Duen’s hands. “Fuck! _Fuck, fuck,_ **_fuck_** , baby, I’m so close, I-”

For a second Duen considers continuing to play with him, hold him on that precipice for awhile longer. But really, this is just the appetizer, and he very much wants to feel Bohn fall to pieces against his mouth before he moves on to the main course. He hooks an arm around one of the legs thrown over his shoulders to accompany the delve of his tongue with the circling pressure of fingers. Bohn shouts, rippling around him and against his lips almost instantly, his heels digging into Duen’s shoulder blades as he shakes apart, his head thrown back and his mouth open with a litany of breathless swears.

The noises he's making alone have Duen grinding against the comforter for a second, hips jerking as he tries to ease his own arousal with some much needed friction. He doesn’t let himself come though, his mouth wet as he leans away to rest his forehead against one of Bohn’s thighs with a few panting groans of his own. “Fuck,” he whispers.

Bohn is still trembling with aftershocks, panting heavily. “Duen, _Duen_ , please. I need-” He chokes on a whimper when Duen tilts his head to press a kiss to his thigh just above the garter. “ _Good_. So good. Please . . .”

Really, Duen could probably do this all damn day. But he also very, very much wants to fuck Bohn while he has him like this, shaking and sensitive and submitting to him wholly. He ignores the whine Bohn releases when he lets his legs drop from his shoulders to kiss back up his stomach. He pauses to lick the last traces of him from his lips, working his way back down to lap up the trail he’s left. No use wasting it, he thinks smugly when Bohn’s breath hitches so harshly he feels the wave of it reach him through his skin. “I’m gonna make love to you,” Duen breathes over his navel.

The response, when it comes, is such a pretty, starstruck sound, the barest whisper, still so stunned after all these years. “Okay.”

He bites his way up Bohn’s ribs, leaving his hands to play with the lace decorating his hips, his ass. “Such a good boy for me,” he murmurs over his sternum, pleased to glance at him just in time to see the hint of pink dusting over his partner’s cheeks. “You’re loving this, aren’t you.” It’s not a question. Bohn is shivering with every touch, breathtakingly sensitive even more so than he usually is. “We should have done this sooner,” he muses, though he's sure it wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact. Bohn’s clearly been saving this for tonight, and the fact that he’s been waiting, been wanting to give this to Duen, makes him dizzy with affection. He finds the end of the tie he’d abandoned earlier, coiling it around his palm before he gives it an experimental tug.

Bohn jerks against him, his head drawn up by the tether to the perfect height for Duen to kiss him. He bites at Duen's bottom lip before he's released, a hint of a smile dancing in the corners of his mouth when Duen lets him down again. “You’re wasting time,” he purrs, and his eyes are embered when he speaks, molten in their intensity. “Don’t you want to be inside your husband?”

 _Cheat_ , Duen thinks, his free hand already wandering lower to pull Bohn’s hips more firmly against him. It’s his own fault he’s so susceptible to this man’s goading, but he sort of likes that. As much as he does enjoy Bohn's pliancy, he's even more fond of how obvious he makes it that, regardless of bound hands or the soft and satisfied way he responds, he's absolutely the one in charge. Bohn smirks as he hooks an ankle around his waist, urging him closer until Duen's hard cock is brushing across the heat of him. "Greedy," Duen chides as he leans over to nip his faux disapproval at Bohn's throat. He earns a shallow inhale for it, a flex of Bohn’s arms as he strains against the bonds in an instinctive effort to try and touch him. "Is that what you want, phi?" He asks, keeping him close with the hold he has him collared by while he sucks a new mark along the underside of Bohn’s jaw. "You want me to fuck you? Knot you? Make you come again?"

The whimper Bohn lets out wavers around a purr he's clearly trying to stifle a bit more, but isn't quite managing to. Fuck, he really does love this. " _Yes_. God, yes. Duen, _please_."

Duen supposes that, on their wedding night of all nights, Bohn should be spoiled with exactly what he wants and more. "Bohn," he hums, nuzzling at his neck just to feel how hard he really is purring. "Promise me you'll let me know if it's too much."

Bohn's thrumming euphoria falters for a second in confusion. "Yeah, I will. Obviously. But why . . ."

He sinks his teeth in before he responds, relishing in how it reignites the purr, has it hitching in a different way. "Just thought I'd warn you," Duen murmurs, "since I plan on _wrecking you_."

Bohn chokes on a sound that definitely starts out as a laugh, but quickly morphs into a groan as Duen gets a proper grip on his hips, and enters him in one smooth motion. His back arches, hands twisting at the tie holding them until he strains it taut. " _Ah_ \- Okay, you were serious. You said it with such a cute face th- _hah_ -ough."

Duen shifts, swiping his tongue over the mark he’s just left before he levels Bohn with a sour expression. "You couldn't see my face," he complains. "I was going for intimidating."

Bohn bites down on his lip. "First of all, your face is always cute. Second, I'm sorry baby, but I've seen you be actually intimidating maybe five whole times since we met, and during sex will never be one of them."

Huffing, Duen adjusts to rest his chin on Bohn’s chest, settling his partner's weight in his lap and smirking only a little when Bohn sucks in a sharp breath as it presses his cock a bit deeper inside. "Not even a little intimidating?" He's not sulking. Much. 

"Baby," Bohn soothes, "I don't want intimidating. Believe me, I wouldn't have married you if I did." Duen glares at him and buries his face in his shoulder, pointedly ignoring the way Bohn is shaking against him with very poorly repressed laughter. " _Baby_ , come on. I wanted you to tie me up because I know you're going to take care of me. And I also know that you can _definitely_ wreck me without trying to get all Big Scary Alpha on me."

Duen peeks at him out of the corners of his eyes, bemused now and not trying to hide it. "What do you want me to do, then?"

Bohn wiggles a little, just enough to hook his legs around Duen properly, rest his heels in the small of his back. "Mmm . . . Well," he muses in that tone of his that gives away that he’s up to no good. "Since I've already come, and you have me so helpless right now," he teases, pulling at the tie around his wrists again as if to demonstrate. "You really could just use me." His breath hitches as he says it, every word curled around the low, freshly eager notes of his purr. _Oh_ , Duen thinks dizzily, he can _absolutely_ do that. He growls out an affirmative almost unconsciously, his teeth scraping over Bohn’s shoulder again as it rumbles through him. It’s apparently the exact reaction Bohn wanted, too, if his racing heart is anything to go by. "See," Bohn purrs, "there's my boy. My alpha. Why don't you use me, baby? Fuck me until you come?" His voice pitches just the tiniest bit lower. "You know, the chances are extremely slim, but there are cases of omegas getting pregnant outside of heats, so-"

Duen doesn’t even let him finish that one, because even as impossible as it is the very thought has tight flames coiling in his gut, makes his hips roll before he can even give it proper thought. Bohn gasps, fingers flexing against his palms above his head. "Yeah. There you go. _There you go,_ _baby._ Just like that. That's good. That's _perfect_." He whimpers the next time Duen moves in him, his thighs squeezing at his sides and his eyes falling shut. " _Fuck_."

So Duen does. Bohn’s given him all the permission he needs. He punctuates every thrust with soft bites, harder imprints of his lips. The silk and lace of the artful body cage has left him access to all his favorite spots, and Bohn’s skin is too bare of his presence after weeks spent absorbed in wedding planning. He knows all of his husband’s most sensitive places by now, and he intends to use each and every one of them to his advantage. Whether or not he's intimidating has no bearing on his ability to make Bohn scream. He has one of his partner’s nipples in his mouth when he feels him start to tense up, abruptly on the brink from the mixture of attention there and Duen’s unrelenting pace, and a rather feral sound unfurls from his lungs as he pulls out and off.

Bohn shouts, his eyes snapping open in surprise as Duen quickly flattens a hand over his chest and hooks a thumb into the metal D ring there to hold him down. He watches how that edged off orgasm ripples through him, the way Bohn so obviously clenches down around nothing in a fit of peak desperation, his pupils blown wide and his breath heaving out of him in startled puffs. "Wha-" he whines, straining the bonds on his wrists with frustration, "What the fuck, Duen!"

Duen just arches an eyebrow, taking hold of the tie leashed to his throat as he carefully rolls him over. It tests the length of the one around his wrists, twisting the silk, but Duen pins Bohn with a firm hand between his shoulder blades to retie it so it won't dig into his skin. 

His partner is panting while he does it, squirming to try and get closer as Duen presses across his back, his ass, when he hitches him to the headboard again. "Okay, okay. I lied," Bohn groans, shivering when Duen hikes his hips up to grind against him. "I shouldn't have said you couldn't be intimidating. But to be fair, I didn't think you were going to _torture me_."

Duen hums out a noncommittal noise across the back of his neck before he sinks his teeth in, pleased when Bohn instinctively stills beneath him. "Thought you said I could use you," he murmurs when he pushes inside him again. Bohn chokes on a moan and shifts to spread his legs a little wider, take him a bit deeper. "Thought you wanted me to try and breed you."

"Y-yeah," Bohn stutters when he starts moving again, and every breath is practically driven out of him. "But I didn’t mean you should _keep me from coming_. That's _mean_." He doesn't do anything other than protest though, all talk but without the right word that will actually make Duen stop. And when Duen works him to that precipice again, has him whimpering and fluttering around him, he gasps out a high, needy mewl when Duen pauses. "Fuck! _Fuck!_ " He's so close, his whole body tense as he clenches down on Duen’s cock as if that will somehow be enough to tip him over into ecstasy. 

Duen purrs against his spine, nipping his way over Bohn’s back until he starts to go lax again, his continued, deliberate dissatisfaction now only apparent in the way his hands have balled into fists in their restraints. His breath is still uneven when Duen starts fucking him again, catching in the wake of every thrust with how achingly oversensitive he must be. He's shivering, practically writhing in an effort to get off, and it’s such a pretty sight that Duen can’t not bite him more, this time hard enough to make Bohn keen. His legs give out, and Duen pulls out on that telltale sign, rolling Bohn over onto his back and holding him down to adjust his bindings as his partner pulls his knees up to his chest with a shuddering sob of, "No, _come on_!"

"Safeword?" Duen prompts, and Bohn furiously shakes his head. Stubborn boy. Duen doesn't want him to tap out though, he just wants to make it good. He's conscious of that the next time he presses inside, the way he rocks into Bohn steady and slow until his partner’s hands loosen out of the fists he has above his head. Bohn has his lower lip held between his teeth again, his eyes squeezed shut and every thrust echoed with a breathy, overstimulated whimper. For once, Duen doesn’t even have to ask him to beg. Bohn is practically praying for release, every other breath taken exhaled in a hitching, " _Please_ ," that makes fire ignite in Duen’s veins. 

He builds up to it, keeps his pace slow and his praises slower even when he feels his knot start to swell. "So good for me, phi," he murmurs, his teeth teasing at Bohn’s throat with every whispered word. "You’re doing so good." He can tell that Bohn is close again, every whimper he chokes on pitched a little higher, the dig of his heels along the small of Duen's back bordering on bruising. "Will you come if I knot you?" He asks. That's what he wants, what he's longing for. He loves it when they fall apart together, when Bohn’s staved-off and then abruptly overwhelming orgasm around him leaves him just as breathless and starstruck as his partner. 

Bohn's already heavy, heady moans are almost too much, his urgency palpable in every note. "Yes. _Yes_ , fuck, _Duen_ please, I need- _hah_!" The arch of his back is sudden, the clamp of his thighs at Duen's waist quivering as he ripples around him and cries out. Duen knots him in the midst of it, a satisfied growl vibrating in his chest as he tugs at the tie around Bohn's neck and draws him in for a fierce kiss. As always, he can't help but try and grind deeper when he comes, every spill inside making his hips jerk with that instinctual need. Bohn gasps into his mouth each time he does it, trembling with aftershocks that have him rolling down into Duen in unsteady wakes of his own. He's been left dazzlingly limp in Duen’s arms, his gaze clouded and hooded with how blissed out he is, and when Duen kisses his approval across the line of his jaw and down his throat he receives a strung out, but even purr of reassurance. 

"Alright?" Duen asks against his skin, nuzzling at a hickey he'd left earlier. He reaches up with one hand as he says it, deftly undoing the tie from Bohn’s wrists. His husband's arms are around his shoulders as soon as they're free, fingers clenching across his spine as he presses closer to bury his face in the crook of Duen neck. He huffs in a series of deep, but steady breaths, a contrast to the way he continues to shiver for a moment. "Too much?" Duen whispers.

Bohn shakes his head, but he's quiet for awhile longer, wound up in the embrace and close coil of their bodies together. Duen traces out meaningless shapes across his back in the silence, peppers soothing kisses over every centimeter of Bohn’s skin the body cage gives him access to. He’s working at a soft spot between his jaw and the shell of his ear when Bohn finally speaks. "That was a lot," he admits, so softly that Duen might have missed it where they any further apart. 

"Good a lot? Or bad a lot?" It's not the first time Duen’s edged him, but it was definitely the most drawn out, and coupled with the bondage he’s starting to worry he pushed too far. 

But Bohn just sighs, the sound so immediately recognizable as pleased that Duen buries his face in the hollow of his throat with a happy hum of his own. "Good," Bohn replies eventually. "Really, _really_ good." He threads still unsteady fingers into Duen’s hair, stroking his bangs back from his forehead to place a kiss there. "You’re gonna have to cuddle me for awhile though. It was _a lot_ ," he reiterates while Duen does his damndest to somehow hold him closer. "And then when the knot goes down, a warm bath. _Just_ a bath," he warns as someone with multiple experiences of their baths together almost always ending in more. "Snuggle, bath, probably more snuggles," he lists. 

"Mm," Duen agrees easily. "I can do that."

The purr that sings behind Bohn’s ribs is just as quiet and satiated as he is, but no less strong. "Love you," he says after a minute, face still buried against Duen’s neck. 

And as always, Duen returns the sentiment wholeheartedly. 

~~~***~~~

There's a thick manilla envelope with Duen's name on it in their mailbox when they return from their little weekend getaway of a honeymoon. He doesn’t hide it, but he does wait to rip it open until Bohn has left to go pick up the kids, pouring over the paperwork stuffed inside by himself in the kitchen. While the forms got there faster than he’d expected, his stomach sinks a little at how much there is to go through. There's probably twenty pages just to get the process started, and the last one is just a list of steps in the process going forward. His eyes catch on a sticky note pasted onto the corner though, the hastily scribbled name, phone number, and office hours of the lawyer he's been assigned. At least he can talk to a real person to get a better idea of what he's up against, he supposes. He makes an appointment for the week after next. 

In the meantime though, Bohn seems keen on being extra handsy. Not that he wasn't already handsy before, but he's definitely upped his ante. There's nothing to read into it other than what, to Duen at least, is blatantly clear. Bohn is simply just happy, and apparently stupidly enamored with married life that, considering they've lived together and had a family for years now, isn't actually that different from their day-to-day previously. The only real thing to note is that, besides being clingier than usual, Bohn is clearly and exasperatingly _baby horny_. 

Duen recognizes this the first time he gets not so casually groped while he's trying to cook breakfast in the early hours of the morning before his shift. Luckily they're the only ones awake, what with the dawn light only just starting to bleed over the horizon, but it really is only a matter of time before either Ben or Bee get up. "Bohn," he warns, immediately distracted as Bohn shifts from palming at his cock through his pajama pants to slipping his hands under the waistband. He's sunrise warm against Duen’s back, the purr rumbling in his chest soft but steady. It's that, for some reason, that stirs Duen from startled stiffness into relaxing, lulled by the sudden memory that the first time he'd ever actually heard Bohn purr was when he was pregnant with Bee. 

He's not sure Bohn has ever even realized that, but it might be for the best that he doesn’t. 

Still, he's not going to fuck his husband in the middle of their damn kitchen (at least not while the kids are home), and he’s quick to turn the stove off and whirl around to herd him back towards the bedroom. It's not the first time he's had this specific Bohn on his hands, birth control or not Bohn just gets into a mood sometimes. This is just the first instance when the desired result is actually a possibility, and Duen is happy to humor him no matter how unlikely it is to happen outside of a heat. 

Bohn had been like this for the entire four month period between the first and second cycles after Bee was born. And he’d been a little mortified later when Duen revealed, with what was basically a well cited essay, that it was actually just a stage omegas had due to a state of increased fertility post pregnancy. He'd lapsed back into it within a few days of Bee starting kindergarten, though he'd apparently done his own research on that one and muttered something about empty nesting before he'd pounced on Duen. So yeah, he’s rather used to this by now, and to say he's not eager to do as asked of him would be an absolute lie. 

Bohn is deliciously pliant by the time Duen gets him on the bed, and he never stops purring the entire while Duen fucks him. His fingers flex in the sheets with each thrust and every little breathless noise he makes is so prettily tinted with pleased ardor that Duen can’t help but spend several minutes afterwards scenting him. 

It becomes almost routine at that point, but never any less exciting. And marriage certainly hasn't made Duen any less enamored with him, so slotting in a few blocks of "Fuck Bohn Until He's a Happy, Satiated Mess," into his schedule isn't a hardship by any means. He's under no illusion that it'll actually work as intended, but that doesn’t really matter. As long as Bohn is satisfied, so is he.

Which sort of just makes him all the more nervous about his appointment with the lawyer. It's difficult to come off of a totally gratifying two weeks of marital bliss only to stare down the void of up to a year's worth of paperwork and stupidly formal, government required meetings and interviews.

The lawyer, who Duen swears must be fresh out of law school with how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed he is, at least gives it to him straight right off the bat.

"You know they only end up approving less than a dozen of these cases a year, right?"

He did not, and Duen feels a lump form in his throat. "Oh . . . Is there, uh, anything I can do to increase my chances?"

Disappointment seeps sluggishly through his veins as the lawyer reluctantly shakes his head. "Nothing that you're not already doing, probably. It's a long process for a reason. Usually it helps weed out the people who aren't actually doing this out of love. So if you're serious, then we're already off to a good start."

Duen nods furiously, "I am! I am serious!" He is, perhaps, more serious about this than he's ever been about anything. 

The lawyer levels him with a considering look over the stack of papers he's leafing through, checking all the signatures and statements Duen has already provided. "You know," he says conversationally, "I think they gave me this as a 'baby's first case hazing' situation with the expectation that it would blow up in my face like most of these ones do. But if you really want to go through with this, and it seems like your heart is in the right place to do so, I'm ready to help you."

Duen casts a glance at how shiny the guy's nameplate clearly is, the freshly minted letters spelling out Teepakorn, and swallows past a wave of doubt. "I want to do this," he reiterates. "It's . . . It's really important to me."

To his relief the lawyer just smiles, apparently pleased with his reply. "Alright. Let's start with outlining where to go from here. They'll want to conduct a basic home inspection first, and we can get that squared away as soon as a couple weeks from now." Duen nods, and he turns to tap something into his computer. "Thursday the 30th work?" Another nod. "Good. Next, assuming you pass that with flying colors, you'll have your first personal interview." He flips through the paperwork again for a second, shuffling a page from the middle to the top after a pause to examine it. "It says here you already have another child with your partner? Bio, I assume?"

"Y-yeah. Bee. She's five this year," he says, rather inanely because he doubts any of that matters. 

But the lawyer just grins at him, jotting everything he’s just word-vomited out into a notebook. "Perfect. That'll help quite a bit, actually, especially if the kids are close. A strong bond between siblings is often indicative of an equally positive one with the parents. So that's really good. Next," he taps his pen against the paper, "they'll interview your husband, and if that goes well they'll conduct another interview with him and his son together, and then finally one with just the son by himself, before finishing it off with another from you."

"That's . . . A lot," Duen says weakly. 

"It can take up to a year," the lawyer admits. "And as I said, it's meant to weed out people with poor intentions, so it’s sort of supposed to be a lot."

Duen grimaces, "Is that, uh, common?"

"For alphas specifically, yeah," the lawyer sighs. "I mean it's pretty rare for alphas to seek legal claim on non-blood kids in the first place, but a lot of the ones that do tend to be doing it for the wrong reasons. Need for a male, and especially an alpha heir, the ability to exercise legal control over a child they might consider lesser because of lack of shared DNA, leverage over omega or omega-leaning partners in the potential event of a divorce, etcetera. Foreigners get put through an extra ringer and a half because there's a risk of trafficking." He makes a face at that. "Anyways. Since it doesn't seem like you're doing this for any of those reasons, I really think we have a relatively easy path ahead of us. The only real problem might be . . ." He hesitates, the pen clicking in his hand, "Are there any other alphas that could lay claim to him? Blood ones, I mean."

"The paperwork showing that his biological father forfeited rights before he was born is in there."

"Ah. No, not that," the lawyer apologizes. "I mean more like grandparents."

Fucking hell. " . . . There might be one," Duen whispers, bile churning in his stomach. Fuck. _Fuck_. He didn't even think of that. 

"If the child is receiving any sort of monetary benefit from another alpha, they have a right to claim him. _However_ ," he adds quickly, likely noticing how rapidly green Duen has gone, "since your son has already presented, that'll be _his_ choice. And not the other alpha's. But if he does decide to accept the formal adoption and the surname change, he'll probably be forfeiting any further financial support from the grandparent." He frowns down at the sheet he’s reading from, scribbling something out and muttering, "Why does this say 'rival alpha?' How archaic. What year do they think this is?" When he glances up at Duen again though his smile is light, determined. "So yeah! Seems like it should be smooth sailing!"

Duen puts on his best attempt at an equally hopeful smile, pointedly ignoring the harsh roil of doubt behind his ribs. 

~~~***~~~

Of course he'd always intended to talk about all of this with Bohn, but Duen had sort of hoped he might be able to present him with a shorter timeframe, and an altogether better, far less confrontational outlook on the matter. He also hadn't really calculated that he might be dealing with Bohn in the midst of one of his baby horny moods, though it would be much worse to wait for his partner to actually be pregnant to bring it up. So he waits for a weekday when he doesn’t have clinic rotation, when Ben and Bee are still at school, and when he's already taken Bohn for a tumble on the living room sofa before he brings it up.

As much as he'd hesitated in discussing having a third baby, Ben is a child they already have, so beating around the bush seems pointless. Duen wants to do right by him, and it's stupid to start out trying to accomplish that by hesitating to strike up the conversation. Which is why he just says it, freshly off the heels of fixing lunch while Bohn is lazing about on the couch, purring a low symphony of contentment.

"I want to adopt Ben. Legally," Duen clarifies, just to be as transparent as possible. 

Bohn sits up so fast there's no way he doesn't get a headrush, his eyes abruptly wide and his lips parted in surprise. "Wha- _what_!?"

Alright. Well. That wasn't the reaction Duen was expecting. He’s not sure what else to say other than repeat himself, either. "I want to legally adopt Ben."

"Yeah, uh . . . I got that part," Bohn says, "I'm just confused as to the, er, the why?"

Duen stares at him for a long moment, unsure whether he should be offended or not, until he steps a little closer to fully register how completely and totally shellshocked Bohn looks. Oh. "Bohn," he whispers, sitting down on the other side of the sofa, careful to leave space between them for Bohn to choose whether he needs it or not. "I've considered him my son since he was _six_. Of course I want to adopt him." He's sure he's said as much before, well prior even to Bee being born. Ben is _his_. In every way that actually matters. "The only reason I couldn't start the process sooner is because we had to be married," he admits.

Bohn is still deathly silent, his eyes wide and his posture stiff. But he doesn't smell like anything other than them, isn't giving off any sort of fear or unease that Duen can sense, and he likes to think he knows this man better than anyone. "You’re sure?" Bohn asks after a minute. "Really? I don't . . . I don't want you to think . . ." He swallows, his breath hitching so audibly that Duen’s heart _aches_ as he realizes what the problem is. _Oh, Bohn_. "I don't want you to feel like you have to," Bohn manages after an unsteady second. "I . . . I have to make sure you know that . . . That it’s okay, if you don't want to."

It's uncommon, Duen remembers the lawyer saying, for alphas to lay claim to non-blood children. And apparently Bohn knows that. "I want to," Duen reassures. "Bohn, of course I want to. I'd like to think he's as much mine as he is yours already." He hopes Bohn knows that, understands that this isn't just about what happened at the wedding reception. Duen always meant to do this, has had it in mind for years, a dormant thought on a back burner, set aside until it was possible. It's possible now. Still, Bohn’s stunned silence has him reeling a little, doubting. "That's okay, right?" He can't help but ask. "That I want him to be ours together? Legally?" 

Bohn sucks in a shallow inhale, and when he reaches out to curl shaking fingers into the front of his shirt the exhale he lets out is just as thin. "Yes. _Yes_. It's more than okay, I just . . ." He sucks in another ragged breath. "I didn’t want to ask."

It occurs to Duen suddenly, painfully, that Bohn had asked, once, but the question hadn't been for him. There's paperwork that says as much, an entire packet of it, signed and notarized, stating just that. He'd asked someone, fifteen years ago, if they wanted a baby not yet born, and been told _no_. Whether or not Bohn grieves that loss (and he doesn't, Duen knows, they've talked about it), the mark is there anyways, he realizes, presenting not as an agony for himself, but for Ben. A latent, horrible memory of a moment where he'd been faced with the reality that he was carrying a child that, at least in part, was unwanted. "Bohn," Duen says fiercely, taking his husband by the shoulders, " _I_ want him. **_I_ ** _want him_." 

And maybe that rings out fifteen years too late, but Bohn doesn't seem to think so. There are tears in his eyes when he buries his face against Duen’s shoulder, his hands trembling where they’re still fisted in the front of his shirt. "I know," he whispers, the sound hoarse. His fingers are so twisted in the fabric as he speaks that Duen’s worried he'll either tear it, or somehow manage to hurt himself, but after a moment Bohn just sort of collapses, his arms winding around Duen’s waist as he sinks down and rests his head in his lap. "I'm really, really happy," he says after a heartbeat, every syllable wet now, his shoulders shaking. Duen soothes a hand over his back, chases the ripple of it away as best he can down Bohn's spine. "I am," he insists. "I'm so fucking happy. I just . . . I need a minute. Okay?"

Duen waits. He cards his fingers through Bohn’s hair with a patient touch, and when Bohn’s "minute" turns into ten, then fifteen, he keeps that to himself. 

"I think he'll be happy too," Bohn says eventually. His voice is still a little thick, his expression concealed with the way he's laying folded over Duen’s knees with his face pressed into his hip, "when you tell him."

"Yeah?"

Bohn nods, the motion easily felt with the position they’re in. "Mmhm. He loves you a lot."

"I love him too," Duen replies instantly, effortlessly. "I've loved him as mine just as long as I've loved you."

Bohn is quiet again after that, content to just let Duen trace out shapes over the slow rise and fall of his back as he breathes before he speaks again. "My father is going to be really pissed," he whispers.

Duen clenches his jaw, not entirely surprised that Bohn knows about that aspect of the road ahead, too. "The lawyer said it will be Ben’s choice," he says. Bohn's fingers clench at his sides at that, old uncertainty seeming to rear its head. "We'll lose access to that bank account," Duen continues with a confidence he doesn’t feel. "But we already own the house, and the cars. I think I make enough to keep everything stable." Actually, he’s almost positive he does. He'll have to go over it all over the next couple of days, but it’s not like doctors scrape by in petty change. Being able to support his family on his salary alone was always his eventual intention, and they haven’t really dipped into the other account since he graduated.

Still, there's a tense, uneasy atmosphere, and Duen’s chest hurts when Bohn tightens his arms around his middle and whispers, " . . . Maybe . . . We should put off having a baby . . ."

"Bohn, _no_ ," Duen murmurs. "I want another baby. We just need to look over the budget a bit. It'll be fine." On top of that, as much as Duen would like to think Ben would accept the adoption, he's not willing to just assume that's a certainty. Still, none of that makes him want to delay what he considers to be inevitable, especially not when just the idea of it is something that's had Bohn so happy for the last few weeks. He taps his fingers against the back of Bohn’s neck, smiling when he finally glances up at him with red rimmed eyes. "Phi," he says, "this doesn't change anything. Really, it's just a little hiccup. And I . . . I know I'm not, like . . ." He hesitates to say "a good alpha," especially with the things that the lawyer had said were far more typical of alphas in similar situations. Maybe, he thinks for a wild second, he's always been a good alpha. Maybe other alphas just generally _suck_. It's not like he’s never seen the proof of that, his own father and Bohn's are what most people would call traditionally "good" alphas, and Duen considers neither of them to be any sort of role model. The ones he does exemplify are those he's actually close to; Ram, who takes his role as a protector seriously, and Thara who has always strived to be as caring and giving as he can. "I want to be a good alpha for you," he rephrases softly, carding absentminded fingers through Bohn’s hair with the other hand. "And I think, for the most part, I've done alright. I have a fantastic job, a nice house, a handsome husband." Bohn huffs out a laugh. "And two great kids already. I would have never asked you to have another baby if I thought we couldn't handle it."

"You are a good alpha," Bohn says, sitting up and scooting forward to wrap his arms around Duen’s neck. "But you know I don't care about that. You're a good _person_ , Duen. That's what matters to me. That's what I love about you. _That's_ why I want to have another baby with you." Duen can feel the smile against his skin when Bohn nuzzles into the side of his neck, a renewed thrill of a purr vibrating in his chest. 

Duen's cheeks are flushed by the flattery. He’s not sure what to say in the face of such compliments, especially so when they're being given by someone he’s already made a vow to be with forever. What more can he offer? Double marriage? "Let's get married again," he says, grinning when Bohn shakes with laughter against him. 

"Can you imagine our friend's faces if we announced we were renewing our vows after _less than a month_? They'd be so annoyed!" Bohn snickers.

"Tingting would be into it."

"Tingting ascended above the emotions of mere mortals eons ago," Bohn says seriously. "She doesn't count."

~~~***~~~

Even after their lawyer spends a week carefully walking them through how a typical home inspection usually goes and the best ways to prepare for it, it still ends up being much too stressful for Duen’s taste. They schedule it for a time when Ben is still at school, but Bee is done with her half day of kindergarten and is _ecstatic_ to show the largely expressionless social worker every single dinosaur and Hot Wheel she owns. As for Bohn, he hangs back for the majority of the process, clearly on edge about a stranger being in their territory. Belatedly, Duen realizes, it definitely isn't doing them any favors that Bohn is so close to nesting. His unease is obvious, especially whenever Bee presents the social worker with yet another well-loved dinosaur plush. Eventually, Duen crouches down to softly ask her if she's done her reading practice yet, which promptly ends all further toy expo shenanigans in favor of running off to consider which book to read for the next ten minutes. 

That gets them out of Bee's room finally, and sails them through Duen’s office and their own room to head towards Ben's bedroom, only for Duen to have to get a firm and hopefully subtle hold on the back of Bohn’s shirt as the social worker pauses the peek into the empty room in between them where Bee had been born. She gives it a quick, curious once-over, spotting the mattress propped on its side by the half-open closet, and the obvious stacks of blankets and boxed up baby things within. "You’re planning on having another child?"

Duen drags Bohn to him as gently as he can before the social worker turns to look at them again. He plants a firm hand on his husband’s opposite hip, pinning him close, the best he can do under such scrutiny. He's not sure whether she either notices or cares that she's inadvertently riled Bohn up, but it’s probably the former. Betas don't nest, and he can't exactly blame her for not realizing she's overstepped. "We are," he says. The lawyer had said they should be as transparent as possible, and he sees no reason to lie about that, of all things. 

To his dismay though she frowns, writing down something on her clipboard. "Rules for adoption state that there must be a bed for every child in the house, and preferably no more than two per room, with restrictions to age gaps. There’s a large age gap between your eldest and your youngest. And if you have a third child within the next year that'll also be outside of what is considered to be a healthy, room-sharing age range for children."

Duen tries very, very hard not to roll his eyes, but apparently Bohn doesn't succeed in the same task, because the social worker levels him with a very unimpressed stare a second later. "We plan on turning the birth nursery into the next child's room," Duen says as steadily as he can, since apparently that somehow wasn't obvious. And then, before she can ask, he adds, "and if we have any more after that, it'll be once Ben has been in college and comfortably moved out for a few years."

Not that that is really any of her business, he thinks, but she jots it all down and closes the nursery door, so he counts it as a win, if only for Bohn's comfort.

The rest of the inspection is uneventful, doubly so once Bee comes back with her chosen book and Bohn ducks out of the entire affair with the excuse of needing to read with her. Not having to wrangle either his over-enthusiastic daughter or his on-edge, close to nesting mate makes the entire process somewhat smoother, and they finish off everything in the kitchen where the social worker spends an inordinate amount of time admiring his cookware. "Your husband cooks a lot?" she asks, and Duen tries not to be wildly annoyed by her blatant surprise when he corrects her. 

"Ben cooks too," he states when she tries to clear her throat and amend herself.

". . . And he's also presented, correct?" She asks, writing yet another thing onto her clipboard. "Alpha as well? Interesting."

Whether it's a good "interesting" or a bad one, Duen has no idea. She leaves pretty promptly after that, her notes clutched protectively to her chest as if he’s going to try and peek like a grade-schooler cheating on a test. The second she's gone he lets out the biggest sigh of his life, which is apparently the calling card for Bohn to poke his head out of Bee's room and yell, "Holy _shit_! I hated that!"

"HOLY SHIT!" Bee parrots. Which is great. Swell. Another week of profusely apologizing to her kindergarten teacher when she inevitably repeats it in class.

~~~***~~~

By now Duen is well clued in on even the earliest signs of Bohn nesting. It always starts with a bit of territorialness, a few days where he pretends he's not nearly as reluctant to leave the house as he actually is, and if they're really unlucky, a handful of hostile instances with guests. At this point Duen knows better than to invite people over within a week of when he expects Bohn to start nesting, but the social worker visiting was a necessary evil. Still, the added pressure does exactly what he expected, and by the next morning two of his favorite work shirts are missing from the closet. 

He scans the room for them, easily spotting their floral prints stuffed beneath Bohn pillow, impossible to be retrieved without waking him.

So Duen wakes him. Nicely of course, with a few quick and teasing kisses and nibbles, the covers tossed aside as he makes quick work of parting Bohn’s thighs. "You know you're not supposed to take my clean work clothes," he scolds when Bohn sighs and stretches out over the sheets with a languid purr beneath him. "You have free reign of the hamper, and yet you've wrinkled up the shirt I wanted to wear today."

Bohn whimpers on a moan when he presses inside, fingers flexing on his pillow as he rolls his hips back as best as he can from where Duen has him pinned face down on the mattress. "You can- _hah!_ You can have it back as long as you return it tonight," he concedes without protest, breathless, and that was pretty much the exact response Duen was looking for. 

As with most mornings as of late, Duen starts his day fucking Bohn slowly. It really is a shame he can't get him pregnant like this, in the careful quiet hours encased in halcyon dawn light. He likes it best when Bohn is uncoiled with heady, pleasured purrs and moans, when their lovemaking isn't hormonally frenzied. Bohn’s almost more of a mess now than he is during heats, mewling on hitched sounds of ecstasy with every thrust, trembling from head to toe when he comes. He's soft and content by the time Duen knots him, every kiss exchanged met with a dazed and satisfied look through half-lidded eyes. 

They probably have a week left before the cycle starts, Duen thinks under the heat of that look, nuzzling his way over Bohn’s throat and digging his teeth into the softest part. He's enthralled when Bohn instantly goes completely pliant in his arms. "Try not to throw the mattress into the living room until next weekend," he teases when he lets go. 

"I will do my best," Bohn deadpans. 

Where Bohn’s nesting when they'd first started dating had been oftentimes rather sudden, or so subtle it took them awhile to notice, he’s definitely found a routine to it all by now. And he doesn’t really try and hide how happy that makes him. Duen knows that many of those first heats together had been stressful, or worse, extensively and chemically muted, but those days are long behind them now. Bohn slowly stockpiles things, sifting through various blankets, clothing, and towels to find what he wants before he hoards them away in their bedroom. That's where the better part of the trove stays for most of the week, stashed away and out of sight. The only real exception is the pillows, which Bohn always moves to the living room first while he spends the majority of his pre-heat afternoons nestled among them on the sofa. Duen has, on more than one occasion, called him a pillow prince for that, and of course received one of said pillows tossed in his direction for it.

His own pre-cycle tendencies lack the same learned subtly as Bohn’s though, and on Wednesday Ben eyeballs the quickly growing stockpile of food in the fridge during dinner and levels both of them with unreadable stare before he says, "Am I old enough to go stay with a friend during this? Or do I have to go with Bee still."

Bohn gapes at him from where he was picking at his meal, the fork clattering out of his hand. "Uuhhhh . . ." He falters. "I mean . . . I guess?"

Duen doesn’t look up from his tablet and the emails he's trying to answer. "Are we still calling Anna a 'friend?'"

Picking up his fork again, Bohn points it at Ben, "Oh! Yeah! If you're going to Anna’s that's fine too, but you have to let your phorh take you to the pharmacy first."

Ben blinks, befuddled, and Duen pointedly continues to type out his emails. Fellow alpha or not, he is going to keep his head down for this. "The, uh . . . The pharmacy?" Ben laughs nervously. "Why?"

"Condoms," Bohn states without hesitation. "No sleepovers without condoms."

Rightly, Ben seems to decide this is not yet worth the severe mortification, and begrudgingly mutters that he'll go with Bee to Frong's place on Friday. Regardless, Duen suspects the offer will be taken up the next time it's made, and settles that horrifying thought in the back of his mind for when it's actually needed. 

By the time Friday actually rolls around he ends up getting so caught up in prowling the yard that he almost forgets to drop them off entirely. So when Ben calls him out on it, he can't help but toothily remind him that this specific instinct will also be his own personal hell in a year or two, to which Ben shuts up with a grimace. When they pull up to Frong and Thara’s apartment building an hour later he’s still quiet, and for a moment Duen thinks it's just because of his teasing, until Ben whispers, "Are you guys having another baby?"

It's fortunate, really, that Frong is already in the process of unloading Bee from her carseat, and manages to do it with the efficient effectiveness of someone sensing a conversation they don't want to be a part of. He shuts the back door and heads towards the building with her and her suitcase without a backwards glance, Bee holding his hand while she happily and obliviously chats away about the fifteen new Hot Wheels she brought with her. 

Uncomfortably, Duen remembers how Ben had first reacted to the news of Bee, how inconsolable he'd been with the misplaced hurt of thinking he was being replaced. That's what sticks in his mind when he says what he does next. "Can I ask you something first before we talk about that?" Really, he'd planned to do this with Bohn. But Bohn is busy tearing apart their living room, and maybe it's better, more meaningful, if he says it while he and Ben are alone. Ben nods. "What do you think about having the surname Rattananumchock?"

Ben blinks. "Uh. For . . . The baby? Or . . ."

"For you," Duen clarifies. 

He's so much like his dad, Duen recognizes fondly, so initially silent when he's startled, tense when he's confused. "That's your last name," he whispers, his voice cracking.

"And Bee's," Duen reminds, "and your dad's now, too. But I'd like it to also be yours, if that's okay with you." It feels so wrong to list it like that, to point out how, legally, Ben is the only one who hasn't been able to shed those last traces of a family who never did right by either him or Bohn. But Duen is changing that. He wants to change that so desperately, for Ben’s sake just as much as his own. He hopes that Ben will say yes because he wants to be his son, but he also won't begrudge him the choice of doing so for other reasons, either. More than anything, he just wants Ben to be happy. 

"Mine?" Ben echoes. "I don't- What do you mean? Like . . . On paper?"

"Legally, yes, your name would officially be Ben Rattananumchock, since you'd be my son." Not that he isn't already, but Ben knows that. He'd said as much at the wedding reception. 

Ben is staring at him, his hands planted on the center console between them and his mouth agape. For a heartbeat Duen thinks he's read this all wrong, especially when visible tears start to well in the teenager's eyes, and even more so when Ben presses the heels of his hands to his face, struggling to wipe them away as a sob the likes of which Duen hasn't heard from him since he was nine staggers from his lungs. "I-" Ben hiccups when Duen unbuckles his seatbelt to reach for him. "I want t-that. I really, _r-really_ want . . . _Phorh_ . . ."

Duen gathers him into his arms as best as he can considering how tall he's become, fiercely rubbing his cheek over Ben's head as he hugs him. " _Luuk_ , did you think I wouldn't? You've been my son as long as I've known you." Ben sucks in a huge, shuddering breath, clinging to the back of Duen's coat with shaking fingers as he buries his face in the crook of his neck. "This is just the soonest I could make it official. You're just as much my baby as Bee, or any other kids your dad and I have. You're _my_ son," he reiterates, relieved when Ben nods against his shoulder. "And I want everyone to know how much I love you."

"Me too," Ben chokes. "Phorh, I want that too." There’s still a lingering thread of tension in the air, an unspoken caveat, and Duen can't help but laugh when Ben mutters, "My grandfather is gonna be super pissed though."

"Your dad said the same thing."

Ben is still trying to scrub away stray tears when he pulls back, but he's smiling so widely, laughing, that it's easily overshadowed. "You never answered my question. Are you and dad having another baby?"

"We'd like to try," Duen admits, ignoring Ben’s whispered, " _gross_ " and faux gag. "Is that okay with you?"

"Uh yeah?" Ben says. "Of course. I'm just asking because you both got weird last time, and if you guys are gonna be _like that_ for awhile after this week I wanted to ask for a good pair of noise canceling headphones as a consolation."

Duen flushes. Well then. At least that’s good to know. Sorta. 

~~~***~~~

As much as Duen would love to spend time basking in the glow of Ben’s acceptance of him as his legal parent, it's little hard to do that in the middle of all the cycle prep that sets in all over again the minute he gets home. He has locks to check and recheck, window latches to stare at, and to his endless delight, a nest he’s invited to help finish. Bohn sleeps through a lot of it, resting while he still can and waking only long enough to inspect that the work his partner has done at his direction meets a set of standards Duen will never be able to comprehend. And once he's satisfied with that, he curls back into the cushiest part of the nest and pretty much passes right back out again. 

There's never really a set time frame for when their cycles start or end, the only guarantee being the fact that they happen at all. It's after midnight when the distraction of Bohn’s heavy, honeyed scent gets to be too much to ignore, the clock ticking into the first minutes of a new day when Duen shifts awake from his own doze to find himself painfully, unavoidably hard. He notices, first and foremost the difference in Bohn’s heat scent. There's a slightly sweeter tinge to it, probably only just enough for him alone to pick up on, and he buries his face in his husband’s shoulder as it hits him. _Fuck_. He can _tell_ , he can tell that Bohn is . . .

"Bohn," he pants, dragging his teeth over his throat as Bohn starts to drift towards consciousness. There's already precum smeared on Bohn’s abdomen, and Duen can't help the slow, increasingly desperate roll of his hips against him. " _Bohn_ , I need-" The friction is good, the warm press of skin on skin a mild relief, but it’s not what he needs, especially not when he can smell how ready for this Bohn is.

Bohn uncurls from sleep, stretching his arms over Duen’s shoulders with a yawn that staggers into a groan when Duen growls and grinds at his stomach again. "Hey, hey," he soothes. His fingers thread into Duen’s hair, brush sweat-soaked bangs from his eyes. "Give me a second, baby. I've got you."

Duen chokes on a sound that runs perilously close to a whine. He’s mildly mortified when it slips out, startled by how unusual it is coming from him, and latches his teeth into Bohn's shoulder to try and stifle the rapid rise of another one. Fuck. _Fuck_. He’s not sure it's ever been this bad, not even in that nearly two year gap without the cycle before and after Bee was born. _God_ , he can _tell_ , and it's lighting such an intense fire in his veins he's half worried it'll burn him alive. His breath staggers through him, harsh and shallow as he struggles to steady himself, but it’s really, really not working. He needs. It's actually almost entirely overwhelming how badly he needs to have Bohn under him, how much his brain is fogged with the desire to pin him down. "Bohn," he gasps, his voice thick and strained. "Bohn, I have to- I can _tell_ \- I need-" It's overpowering, a punchdrunk sweetness that is fraying his control with every passing second. To his senses alone it's unmistakably clear that this time, with certainty, fucking Bohn through his heat is going to result in _exactly_ what he wants. 

There are no lingering effects of hormone blockers to dull it now, no single missed days of birth control to mask it. "What can you tell?" Bohn whispers, husky and the tiniest bit confused. He’s pliant when Duen manhandles him onto his front though, curious warm eyes peering at him over his shoulder as Duen plants a firm hand at the base of his neck. "Baby, come on," Bohn urges when Duen doesn't answer, too busy lining them up to process the question, "stay with me a bit longer. What can you tell?"

He groans when Duen pushes inside him, hard, fast, panting over his spine as he replaces the grip of his hand on Bohn’s neck with his teeth. It takes them a second to catch their breaths, an unbroken growl now settling behind Duen’s ribs. He blinks after a moment though, lifts his mouth from Bohn’s skin with a heavy inhale as he tries to find the words. Bohn will want to know, he thinks dizzily, he'll want to know because he'll _like it_. "You smell different," he confesses lowly, hiking Bohn’s hips up a little higher, searching for a better angle before he starts moving. Bohn whimpers when he does, feverishly sensitive and trembling. "You smell different," Duen repeats, "and I can tell it means you're ready."

Bohn chokes on a mewl, fingers scrabbling at the sheets as Duen takes him. "R-ready for what?" He manages after awhile. 

He's so good like this, Duen thinks, perfect when he's fever flushed and heated, panting out his pleasure and so deliciously tight and wet for him that it drives Duen wild. "I can tell you're ready to be bred," he growls. Bohn tenses as soon as he says it, crying out as Duen sinks his teeth into his throat, fucks him through it as he flutters around him in wakes, hotter, tighter, shaking with prolonged aftershocks. 

" _Fuck_ ," Bohn hisses once he has the breath to. He scrambles to snag one of the pillows around them, bury his face into it to try and muffle the litany of, " _Hah-ah_! Oh god!" that he seems to have little control over. "F-fuck, can you really? I- _hah!_ Fuck, Duen, _fuck_ , is that true?"

Duen answers that with another growl, another press of teeth to tender, already bruising skin. Bohn is ready, and Duen isn't going to let him go until he's been fucked full, until he’s dripping with him, until Duen is certain that he won’t be leaving this nest without the very proof of their coupling _inside him_. It’s with that thought that he grinds his knot in, a faint taste of copper on his tongue when he comes. It leaves him gasping, spots dancing in his eyes while he moans. He's sure Bohn follows him over the edge again, the way he's clawing for purchase in the sheets and clenching down around him a dead giveaway, but he can't focus on that. It's so much, his own desperation still high as he tries to get just a little deeper, his hips jerking with the effort. _It's so much_ , seconds extending into a minute, his cock twitching with release, nails digging into Bohn’s hips, teeth still at his neck as he holds him there.

His vision swims when it finally stops. Every nerve in his body feels like it's strung thin, tingling under his skin as he lifts his mouth away from Bohn’s throat to try and take a fuller breath. Bohn is still shuddering beneath him, whimpering with obvious overstimulation. His hands fisting at the sheets when Duen wraps his arms around him to lower him further down, press them more firmly together while they have a brief moment to rest. There's a fine trickle of blood running along his neck towards his clavicle, and Duen licks it away before it can stain anything, nuzzling over the scent glands near where he's bitten as he does so. After a minute or two of that Bohn goes lax beneath him, purring softly. His eyes are half-lidded when he glances Duen’s way again, his full expression hidden behind the curve of his shoulder. "So," he muses, and Duen can tell he’s smirking, even if he can't see it. "You can smell that I'm, what, appropriately fertile or something?"

Duen just glowers at him, his response too mulled and honestly annoyed in his rut-fogged brain to even attempt to say out loud.

"I think I've got something like that too," Bohn admits, stretching out as much as he can while they're tied together. "Feels a little bit like an early peak, but my fever isn't high enough for that yet. Also," he scolds lightly, "I've clearly got a bit more brain power than you right now still. So it’s more just like, uh . . ." He draws off, clearing his throat a little, and Duen's breath catches as Bohn bears down on him a bit more, gasping and quivering when he does so. "I need . . . _Ah_ \- I'm gonna need you to go again pretty much immediately," he confesses, his voice wavering around another shaking sound. " _God_ ," he groans, wiggling as he tries to spread his legs a bit wider, as if that will somehow aid them, make Duen be able to pull out sooner just to fuck him breathless all over again.

And that's pretty much exactly what happens. Not at the speed at which Bohn seems to want it to, but all the same. Duen is hard again before he even eases out of him, nipping his way up Bohn’s sternum when he flips him over and pushes his legs up towards his chest. Bohn keens, his back arching as Duen enters him. His nails leave little crescent patterns in Duen’s shoulders, paths marked down from them over his spine while he’s fucked. In that way at least they match, skin equally decorated with hormone induced ferocity. 

This time, Duen can feel how desperate Bohn is starting to get. It shows in the slightly higher rise of his temperature, the heat of his breaths panted between them, how easy, even moreso than usual, he is to tip into sharp and shaking ecstasy. He's an absolute mess when Duen knots him again, gasping through rippling aftershocks of another orgasm. Duen kisses away overwhelmed tear tracks, traces them down to nibble at the hinge of his jaw. "Phi," Duen praises. "Look at you, phi. Do you know what I'm doing to you?" Bohn buries his face in the crook of his neck, the nod he gives felt more than seen. " _Mine_ ," Duen growls. " _Mine_. You're _mine_ , phi. Only I can do this to you."

Bohn shivers in his arms despite the flushed heat of his skin. His reply is hoarse, ragged when he returns, "Yes. _Yes,_ god, _Duen_."

They're stuck together for a little while longer, long enough for Duen to soothe him again with matching purrs, careful attention. It's a lot, it's so much, but even through the haze of how badly his body is urging him on, he wants to make sure Bohn’s taken care of. He hasn't even hit his peak yet, but his mate is clearly getting overwrought. "You alright?" He whispers when he's able to pull out again. 

"Y-yeah," Bohn returns, just a little hitched, a bit wet. "Give me a minute though. It’s . . . A bit more intense than usual." 

That might be a severe understatement, Duen thinks, still hazy enough in the head to need a second to fully process the words. Regardless, he’s not even sure Bohn himself takes the time he probably should before he's squirming in Duen’s hold, panting on a groan as he positions himself back over onto his stomach. It does something to Duen's already one-track mind to see him so achingly desperate, to watch him get his knees under him, his thighs shaking when he parts his legs. The noise he makes is only slightly startled when Duen pounces on him, more gratified than anything, tipping into a moan as Duen grips his hips and presses back inside. He actually is peaking early, Duen realizes with a fresh wash of his own feverish desire. Bohn is already insatiably hot under his touch, choking on needy, high exhales with every movement of their bodies. 

He's also, Duen notes with distant amusement, rapidly descending into his usual string of heat-babble. Though at this point he's so oversensitive that he keeps cutting himself off. He bites down on his lower lip through every other word, practically quivering with pleasure. "F- _fuck_ , Duen, I- _hmm-_ _ah!_ Fuck, _fuck_! Fuck me, _fuck me_ , I-"

Rut or not, Duen has to laugh a little at that. He muffles it against Bohn’s shoulder, apologizing with a quick bite to the spot, and a kiss over top of that. "I am, phi," he chuckles.

Bohn whines beneath him, rocks back into the next thrust and the one after. " _H-harder_ ," he pleads. "More. I need-" He claws at the sheets, panting so harsh and rapid Duen worries he might actually pass out. "More. _More more more_ **_m-more_** _._ "

"S'okay," Duen murmurs. "I am. I've got you."

To his bewilderment though, Bohn just shakes his head. He's so on edge, trembling every time Duen moves, flushed and almost painfully breathless. "Need it," he whimpers, "need it . . . Baby, _please_."

"Bohn," he soothes, worried. This is new, a tad alarming with how utterly insatiable and discomforted Bohn seems. He’s at the height of his rut and apparently he's not doing enough. Frustrated now, he noses over the back of Bohn’s neck before he bites him again. He's as gentle as he can be when he finds that soft spot, sinks his teeth in with the hold that always makes his mate settle. 

Bohn stills with another high whimper, a tremble and an unsatisfied sigh. "Please," he begs, "please, I need . . . Baby, I need-" Another low growl rumbles in Duen’s chest, his brain struggling to parse out his partner’s unsteady jargon. " _Please_. Please, _baby_ , please- I need- _mm_!"

It hits him then, broadsides him what Bohn is asking for. He's not calling Duen by his favorite affectionate epithet. He's not calling out for him at all, really. Bohn is desperately, _desperately_ telling him what he wants. 

This time the knotting is rather sudden, Bohn letting out a strangled noise when it happens on the wake of Duen pulling his hips back into him, driving as deep as he can go as he comes. The strength of the orgasm has him reeling, gasping in his consistent, heavy growls as he tries his damndest to press forward just a little more, somehow tie them further so he can give Bohn exactly what he wants. Bohn seems temporarily appeased though, shivering with unmistakably happy, if totally exhausted purrs. "Yes. Yes, _yes,_ **_yes_**. Just like that. That's perfect."

Duen doesn't break his grip when he rolls them onto their sides, only letting go of the bite once he can pull Bohn close enough to nuzzle over the place he's marked. "Better?" He musters out, voice still gravelly. 

"For _now_ ," Bohn purrs. He’s still much too wiggly for Duen’s tastes, seemingly unable to stay as still as he probably should be while knotted. Duen huffs and bites him again, a quick warning nip to the underside of his jaw. "Sorry," Bohn gasps. "I'm just- _mm!_ I'm very sens- _hah!_ sensitive!" He squirms again, though the motion is noticeably tenser, especially with how he's rolling back against Duen with his whole body as if he’s trying to fuck himself, an impossible feat while knotted. "Can you, uh, can you-"

Duen does without further instruction. It doesn't take much to get Bohn tumbling over that precipice. A minute or less of attention where it's asked of him and Bohn’s back is arching, his toes curling as he bites his lip to muffle a noise that still echoes near to a scream. He's almost immediately pliant in the wake of it though, his breathing steadier, his fever lower. And after a few quiet moments where Duen just does what he does best, spoiling Bohn with attentive purrs of his own, soft kisses and softer bites, he’s almost asleep. "Better?" He asks again, pleased when he's granted a much surer, if sleepier nod. 

"Yeeeaaah," Bohn drawls around his low, continuous purr. "I'm gonna pass out now though. Wake me if you need me."

Duen’s fairly sure they've both worn themselves out for at least a few hours, and says as much into the curve of Bohn's shoulder before he buries his face in the same spot, still punchdrunk off the scent of him as he drifts off, too.

~~~***~~~

While altogether it ends up being one of their shorter cycles, it's unquestionably their most intense yet. And by the time Duen finds the constant, prickling need in his veins has worn off somewhere around the seventy-two hour mark, he’s relieved.

Bohn’s been asleep for awhile, nestled down in his favored part of the nest where the pillows and blankets are gathered and kneaded thickly. When Duen moves to lay a hand over his forehead he stirs, blinking dazed eyes before humming and burying his face in one of the quilts. "S'morning?"

Duen glances towards the drawn curtains, "Uh . . . No? It's dark out though, so I guess it could be close to morning."

Bohn is passed out again though, oblivious to the very answer he'd asked for. It's fine, Duen figures, they really should both use the extra time to rest. Bohn especially. He traces lazy shapes over his husband’s sides when he tucks up protectively against him, one arm under the warmth of his body to keep him close while he chases the slow rise and fall of his breaths through the expanse of his ribs. It'll be a week yet before they might be able to tell they've succeeded, _at minimum_ , and then at least two until Bohn can take a test to be completely positive. 

Not that it's difficult, exactly, or even remotely unlikely. A pregnancy is almost guaranteed for an omega in heat if preventative measures aren't taken (they have two examples of that already, Duen thinks with a fond snort). Still, nervous unease thrums in his chest and persistently lingers well into the next evening, wherein he can't help but ask, "You don't think I could have fucked it up, right?"

Bohn stares at him over the rim of his mug of honeyed chamomile tea, his legs pulled up to his chest and his back against the headboard of their bed. It's late, probably way too late for such questions. But the kids have been in bed for awhile now, and Duen is already stressed enough keeping that thought to himself. "Uh. I mean. You did." Duen pales. "You fucked it up, down, sideways, backwards, forwards-" He glances over, clearly spotting the outraged look on Duen’s face in the middle of his list, and bursts out laughing. If he weren't likely pregnant, Duen would shove him right off their bed. 

~~~***~~~

It's easy to put it out of their minds for awhile after that. Duen has work, and while Bohn spends most of his mornings dead to the world, his afternoons are still largely occupied by Bee, who isn't quite old enough yet to stop being a handful in her own right when she wants to be. So their days are more or less normal, solace found in the simplicity of familiar routine. Hell, Duen's not even bothering to look for signs, certain that he'll see them where they might not actually exist if he's too eager. 

He has Mondays off, so while Bee is at school, probably terrorizing her teachers and rallying her classmates in tiny revolution or something else they'll get a phone call about this week, Bohn ropes him into a well supervised cooking lesson. "I swore I would at least be able to cook a basic entree for you," he says when Duen tries to convince him not to burn their damn house down. "Literally anything is fine. Rice even."

"You can already make rice," Duen reminds with a roll of his eyes. "It's one of the three things you can cook, along with instant noodles and _toast_."

"I also make a mean kool-aid," Bohn huffs, tugging at his arm. "Please? Just something easy. I promise I'll be a good student."

Two burnt omelettes and one impressively and impossibly lumpy jello later, Duen wraps his arms around Bohn’s middle from behind and whispers a teasing, "Phi, I'm sorry, but I think you're cursed. The omelettes aside, that gelatin is . . . Well, while it might actually be edible, you'll have to pay me to eat it." He kisses his husband’s cheek as he says it, snickering over how it's puffed in a pout before he buries his face in his shoulder to try and muffle a much louder laugh.

"We have the same money," Bohn reminds darkly. "All of which you earn. So I'll be paying you with your own fucking salary."

"Sulking," Duen sing-songs. He rubs his cheek over Bohn's shoulder, his neck, eyes half-lidded and a purr rumbling in his chest. 

For some reason, Bohn falls quiet at that, and Duen pauses where he's nibbling at the shell of his ear when he feels him tense up. "Uh . . . Duen . . ."

"Hmm?" He shifts attention to the other side, distracted again as he trails kisses over Bohn’s throat and nuzzles into his scent glands. 

"What . . . Uh, what are you doing?" Bohn asks softly, almost nervously. 

Duen acknowledges the faint trepidation in a vastly uninterested part of his mind and then quickly brushes it away. If Bohn is uneasy, it's his job to soothe that. He purrs a bit louder, drawing lazy lines all up and down Bohn's front as he does. Bohn relaxes back into him slowly, though his breath hitches just a little, his fingers trembling when they reach up to tangle in Duen’s hair. 

"Baby," he whispers, "hey. Duen, _hey_ , listen to me a second. What are you doing?" He's almost giddy now when he asks it, the tinge of excitement in his voice obvious despite how lax he's become. 

"Scenting," Duen says, nosing at his throat.

He can practically hear Bohn’s growing smirk, can pick up on the happiness radiating in the air mixing with every other intoxicating bit of him. "Yeah, alright," he laughs. "I figured that bit out. But _why_?"

"Y'smell good," Duen purrs. He smells _amazing_ , actually, a low and heady, warm scent that Duen hasn't had tasted since . . .

. . . Since . . .

" _Oh my god_."

"Yep!" Bohn returns, all but vibrating out of his skin as he twists around in Duen’s arms to start peppering kisses over his face. "Duen," he grins. "My lovely, adorable boy, do you remember what that means?"

"Baby," Duen says hoarsely, stunned. "We're having another baby." 

It almost doesn't seem real, what with how the last one was such a surprise. Bohn is watching him, expression so immeasurably soft and fond that Duen’s heart stutters in his chest like he’s eighteen all over again. "You ready to have another baby with me?" He asks, his thumbs stroking over Duen's cheeks. 

"Yeah," Duen breathes. And then he gets his arms around his waist, lifting his husband just far enough off the floor to twirl him around the kitchen. Bohn yelps, startled and delighted as he bursts out laughing before Duen sets him on his feet again. " _Bohn_ ," he purrs. "A _baby_!"

For some reason that makes Bohn choke up, and while the sound of it is unsteady, his continued delight is palpable as he buries his face into Duen’s shoulder. "Yeah," he murmurs. "You ready?" He asks again, as if he has to be certain one last time. 

"God, yes."

"Me too."

~~~***~~~

Ben's paperwork for the confirmation of his adoption and change of name arrives the same afternoon Day is born, and between his ecstatic teenager and infant son, Duen isn't sure which one cries more. Actually, on second thought it's definitely Bohn, who is still sore and tired and prone to weeping where he's curled around the baby in the nursery, much as he will vehemently deny it all later. Bee cries just so she's not left out. 

Duen isn't ashamed to admit he tears up too, because he loves them all more than he'll ever be able to say. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who stuck with this series so long. Eventually I'll probably add a short story collection to this nonsense for the little things I never could fit in (such as the hilarity of the naming of kid number four, or Duen’s fight with his father). But for now it is complete! FINALLY!
> 
> EDIT: jk I gave in and posted the first of the short stories on the same damn day because I am weak and also it was already mostly done.
> 
> Kudos to you if you caught both cameos from other BL series characters in this chapter.
> 
> Comments, as always, are my fucking energy source. Please feed me ; w ;


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